The Sound Of Hysteria...

No, this isn't a post about the financial meltdown (great doc on Frontline the other night btw), or about Canadian broadcasters or our ISP's, it's just me and one of my occasional rock n' roll rambles.

There's a musical artist or band's 'sound', like the The Stones, U2, Radiohead, David Bowie, TV On The Radio...and then there's the 'sound' the record producer brings to the table, or in this case, the studio.

But what is a record producer exactly? Well, Wikipedia says:

A record producer has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the musicians, organizing and scheduling production budget and resources, and supervising the recording, mixing and mastering processes.

The music producer could, in some cases, be compared to the film director in that the producer's job is to create, shape and mold a piece of music in accordance with their vision for the album. Unlike in film, the music producer is seldom responsible for raising the funds to create the record – more like the film director, the record producer is hired by those who have already obtained funding (typically record or publishing companies, though occasionally the artists themselves).

That's what the best record producers are known for...creating, shaping, and molding the music into a cohesive vision or concept album. There have been several notable record producers in the pop music industry over the past several decades: 'Wall of Sound' Phil Spector (The Righteous Brothers); George Martin (The Beatles); Brian Eno (U2, Talking Heads, Robert Fripp); Timbaland (Justin Timberlake); and my personal fav: Robert John "Mutt" Lange.

Lange's resume is pretty impressive...from Graham Parker's Heat Treatment to AcDc's Back In Black to Bryan Adam's Waking Up The Neighbours to Shania Twain's Come On Over and Up! (say what you want against Twain, but her songs and cd's were really well produced)...Lange has been the mastermind and guiding force behind many of the most popular and successful albums of the past three decades.

And in the mid 80's, he produced Def Leppard's Hysteria, which still to this day remains one of my fav 'sonic' experiences. I really love the way that album 'sounds'.


Lange began working towards a signature multi-tracking musical design during Lep's previous release Pyromania, and specifically "Photograph", but he aced the sound with flying colours on Hysteria. Yes it took more than three years to complete, but proof was in the pudding.

Also from Wikipedia:

While Pyromania contained traces of heavy metal, "Hysteria" removed them in favor of the latest sonic technology available at the time. As with Pyromania, every song was recorded by every member in the studio separately instead of the whole band. The multiple vocal harmonies were enhanced by Lange's techniques, even pitching background vocals on all tracks. Guitar parts were now focused more on emphasising melody than hard rock's more basic and cliched riffs.

I'm not surprised the band used the Rockman amplifier, developed by guitarist Tom Scholz, since Boston's Boston album feels like it could be Hysteria's predecessor.

Listen to "Animal" and you'll hear why:



Or "Love Bites":



Other masterful soundscapes from the album: Women, Rocket, Armageddon It, and of course Pour Some Sugar On Me. Actually, one of the episodes of VH1's Classic Albums profiled "Hysteria". Unfortunately, Mutt Lange doesn't make an appearance, but there's plenty of interesting insight into the songs and how they achieved the sound. Here is Part One. You can watch most of the rest of it HERE.

I don't really have a point, other than to say how much I still enjoy the experience of 'listening' to this album. And I'm not talking about lyrics or song meaning or any of that...just the way the sound...the 'production'... hits my ear and reverberates around in my head. It pleases me. Sort of like the CSI franchise...not a lot of substance, but it sure has a great appealing signature 'look'.

Robert John Mutt Lange made sound 'look' good with Hysteria.

Reading About Producing and the TV Writer/Producer...

Via Greg, this excerpt from a forthcoming U.K. book 'What I Really Want to Do Is Produce' by Helen de Winter which begins by posing this question to several experienced feature film producers:

So you're a producer... what exactly do you do?

Some highlights from the answers:

Alan Greenspan (Donnie Brasco, High Fidelity): "I ask myself the same question."

Barbara Broccoli (Goldeneye, Die Another Day) "Most people have absolutely no concept of what producers do, even people in the film business."

Jennifer Todd (Austin Powers, Memento) "I always say I'm the head firefighter."

Eric Fellner (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary) "Ultimately a producer is the instigator... the cheerleader."

Stephen Evans (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, The Madness of King George) "Frankly the more you explain what you do, the more pathetic you sound: 'I did this and that and you don't realise what I've been through...' You just sound like a fully paid-up member of the Sad Fuckers Club."

Jason Hoffs (The Terminal) "A producer once said to me that a movie project is like a very sick patient who is dying in the emergency room, and you are the doctor who needs to keep the patient alive - except that the patient wants to die. It's not like he's fighting for his life. Even if your project is on the fast track, the amount of care, energy, ideas and passion you need to keep pumping into these things to get them made is staggering. Along the way there are going to be thousands of roadblocks. But you have to keep going. So that's what a producer does. Everything possible."

James Schamus (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain) "Producing is simply having the will to get something done, and figuring out a way to make sure thousands of people help you."

One of Greg's colleagues also commented:

"I tend to make a list of things to do and figure out how to get other people to do them. Using as little money as possible."

That defines it about as well as I've ever heard it. All good stuff. My hat always goes off to producers (and I mean the actual producer, not those garnishing credits via a pay-off or their affiliation to companies or the financing)...it's such a difficult thankless job because although in some ways you are doing everything, it can appear like you're doing nothing. Tough gig.


I also recently read a book by TV writer/producer Jeffery Stepakoff (Wonder Years, Sisters, Beauty & the Beast, Dawson's Creek) entitled 'The Billion Dollar Kiss'. It's a fascinating memoir with lots of insightful, behind-the-scenes peeks at how television is really made, Stepakoff describes how quality script-driven programming ruled the airwaves in the eighties and nineties, why we're watching so much reality TV now, and what the future of television holds for viewers and writers alike.

It's a good read, not only for anyone starting out and wanting to write/produce television, but for more experienced scribes as well. The chapters where Stepakoff reflects on his stint on 'Dawson's Creek' is pretty great insider stuff (how the heck did James Van Der Beek get to wield such a big bat?).

Here's a taste:

When you write one-hour TV—feeding the massive apparatus that produces a $2.5 million mini-movie every six days, day in and day out—you are certainly accustomed to round-the-clock doses of heart-thumping, stomach-churning, no-way-in-hell-will-we-make-the-deadline anxiety. But the panic that gripped the writing staff on Dawson's Creek this particular day was a special kind—an unforgettable kind.

To say that the show was starting to sink would be polite; at this point at the beginning of Season Three, we were already deep, deep, underwater. When I was hired onto the writing staff a few weeks earlier, Dawson's Creek was the hottest show on television. Oh, word was out around town that "The Creek was a crazy place to work" and "Dawson's was a nightmare, beware!" But every writer heard those decrees about every show in town. I mean, unless you were lucky enough to work for Phil Rosenthal on Everybody Loves Raymond, nicknamed by writers as "Everybody Loves Everybody," you knew you'd inevitably put up with a certain amount of insanity if you took a staff gig. That was a given. But the truth is, I had no idea what I was signing up for. I don't think any of the writers really did.

We had been called into the Room to break story, as was our habit; but on this particular day, we had been called much earlier than was our habit. The mind-numbing sound of smashing metal at the body shop on Olympic and Barrington, which our story room overlooked, hadn't even started yet. Like small animals able to sense an oncoming natural disaster, we knew from the position of the sun, the ubiquitous Venti-sized cups, and the alarming quiet, we were officially entering Crisis Mode.

The anxiety was escalating in the Dawson's Creek story room. Tammy Ader stood at one of the five large dry-erase boards mounted on the walls and wrote all sorts of words in a wide variety of cheerful colors. "Pretty in Pink Story!" "Risky Business Part 2!" "Pacey Gets Motorcycle, à la Rebel w/o a Cause." Whenever the story process hits a speed bump, TV writers will often pitch classic paradigms—also known as movies we might be able to rip off. Paul's cheerleading efforts for the possible story lines just made Alex even more disheartened. It's not that he was above stealing from movies. TV writers on deadline will shamelessly pilfer just about anything for inspiration. Current events, bible stories, the sex lives of interns are all fair game for next week's show. Alex hated the tone of Tammy's stories. He championed mysteries, crime stories, and characters that weren't quite like what you'd find on the network that aired Felicity and 7th Heaven. "I sold out," was the explanation Alex oft offered the writing staff as to why he took the Dawson's job. "Sony backed the Brink's truck up to my front door and started dumping money until I just couldn't say no anymore."

As the day progressed and the story process did not, moving from constructive dialectic into something less collegial, twenty-seven-year-old Greg Berlanti, a former movie producer's assistant who had just started writing TV the year before, said something that changed all our lives: "Pacey kisses Joey."

What? I remember thinking. "You can't do that. Joey is Dawson's girl. Remember, they are soul mates, and that is the closest thing we have to a franchise around here."

But Greg was so impassioned, as was his usual state, that he jumped up, grabbed a cheerful color marker from Tammy, and drew a triangle on one of the boards, writing "Pacey" at one point, "Joey" at another, "Dawson" at another. "No, I'm serious," he said. "Pacey kisses Joey. Think about it!"

And that's when it hit me. Of course! A love triangle. Heresy is exactly what the show needed. Not only did we have a story, we had a story engine, a dramatic problem that would create many other stories. There had been a love triangle on the show before, between Dawson, Jen, and Joey. There had once even been a kiss between Joey and Pacey. But these stories never went anywhere. As one person closely affiliated with the series put it, "Those ideas were floating around in the ether; Greg pulled them out and focused on them." For the first time, we had a series. The Katie Holmes–Josh Jackson Kiss, the love triangle it created, and the stories that it bore drove the show to 128 episodes, six seasons, and international acclaim.


I'd also recommend it to Canadian readers just because his Creek experience sounds oh sooooo familiar...as in, they filmed in North Carolina but were constantly on the phone with the network and studio back in LA.

The distant location. Much like how things can go down up here in Canada.


So there you go, each time you think there's no books under the sun that can teach you anything new...another couple come along.

Me And Al(ly) Magee...(Part VI)

Okay, let's put this puppy to bed...the final installment of my interview with Canadian TV Producer and Creative Guru Al Magee. Thanks to Al for taking the time and sharing...this was great.

Will: How did your Banff 2007 go?

Al: Our Banff was an absolutely awesome experience. Our team got amazing results, most of which I’m not going to share with you on your fabulous blog for a mix of confidentiality, superstition and general tight-lippedness. But I can say we had one new show ordered, pitched a ton more, got a lot of promises and interest, created and nurtured a bunch of great new relationships, and have more follow up than I think I can handle.

I got reamed out by Jeff Alpern (which was cool because Jeff is an absolute pro and a champion), brainstormed with the Style Network, got to watch the fabulous Shelley Eriksen in action, had a wonderful dinner with some members of the Writer's Mafia and my team, and was blown away by Ben Silverman’s speech. Banff is essential. It’s the highpoint of our development year.

Will: Where is Smart Woman Survival Guide at these days, and what does its future hold?

Al: We’re just shooting the last few episodes of season three right now, and will be finished production in August. It’s no longer an impossible to define lifestyle hybrid as it’s a full blown scripted comedy and our cast and crew have surpassed expectations. We had Michael Kennedy (of Little Mosque on the Prairie fame) come in to direct for three episodes and he re-introduced us to our show. He showed us what was possible and it blew our minds. We go to air August 11 – and we have to capture a big audience to get an order for more episodes – so check your listings and watch the damn show and tell your friends to watch the show. It’s funny. We’re on the verge of a big international distribution deal and all my superstitions are kicking in, so more on that, or not, later.

Will: I know you’ve been very involved with the Canadian Film Centre over the years. Why do you think it’s important to the Canuck Film/TV industry and is it managing to stay relevant and up with the times?

Al: In my not so objective opinion, if it weren’t for the Canadian Film Centre we wouldn’t have an industry. I could rant about this for hours. What the CFC does is allow people the space to commit to their careers, and to then get the industry behind them in that commitment. While you’re at the CFC you are mentored by the industry and have access to the experience and teaching of dozens of industry mentors, and get a very rigorous education and set of challenges. Coming out of that experience, most people know what is expected of them by the industry and have begun to master the skills to deliver. And they have built a community around themselves who will support them in their career.


Will: You’ve worked primarily out of Toronto for most of your career. Any thoughts ever of making the move to Los Angeles? If not, why do you like working in Canada and navigating the minefield that is Canuck television?

Al: I have worked primarily out of Toronto but I spent almost five years criss crossing Canada where I spent up to 150 nights a year in hotels from Yellowknife to St. Johns. And then spent three years doing the same thing all thru Europe so I had 8 years where I traveled a lot. Prior to that I wrote features out of Los Angeles and learned everything I know about writing but hated being in L.A, and missed everything that’s great about living in Canada. Once my kids got old enough to miss me I quit traveling and set up shop in Toronto.

The minefield of Canadian television can be petty and stupid and incomprehensible but it’s a life that we choose so I have to take some responsibility for that choice. I’ve worked on 24 productions in seven years at Showcase making what I think are some of the best series made in Canada or anywhere. Being a part of shows like Trailer Park Boys and Slings and Arrows and Rent A Goalie is as good as it gets. As a producer I’ve produced seven series in seven years and have a hit show on right now so I have nothing to complain about. I’d love to make the money available in the US but we have a good life here and I don’t have to worry about my kids’ safety or health care the way I would in the U.S..


Will: What energizes or inspires you creatively?

Al: I’m very inspired by the people around me. Melanie, my kids and my friends are very inspiring. I’m inspired by positive energy. I already know all the reasons why everything won’t work and why every idea is a bad idea, so even a drop of positivity can go a long way.

I get inspired when I listen to other people and get connected, and I get really inspired when I know they are listening to me. I get inspired when I’m trusted to do the job. My best work always comes out of trust. Nothing kills creativity more than micromanagement. The reason most of our television sucks is because it has all the life and inspiration micromanaged out of it. There’s nothing more inspiring than another person’s faith, believing you can do something when you’re not sure you can.

Will: What are your personal pet peeves, in work and in life?

Al: I can’t stand cruelty or injustice or disrespect of any kind and I get quite bent out of shape about it. People can be cruel in this business and use “its only business” to justify intolerable behavior. That’s bullshit. “It’s only business” always means – “I’m going to screw you now and break all of our agreements.”

When creative people pour their guts into a project they deserve to be treated with respect and honor, regardless of the opinion on their work. I sometimes forget that and don’t show proper respect to the people I’m working with and that is my greatest embarrassment.

In life I like things to be impeccable so I can’t stand any kind of physical mess. I spent five years living with my ten year old in a cancer ward and he has a compromised immune system so I’ve become something of a germaphobe. I can’t stand it when people are careless with germs. We were in the hospital during the Sars crisis and it showed the danger of being careless with germs and the kind of hysteria that can result. The film and television industry in Toronto still hasn’t recovered from the impact. I take a lot of crap for my germaphobia but it kept my son alive. He's made it to ten when he might not have made it to five.

Will: Favorite Movie of all time.

Al: The Magnificent Seven (and the original, The Seven Samurai)

Will: Favorite TV Shows of all time

Al: The Flintstones, Gilligan’s Island, Twin Peaks, early Sopranos, The Shield, Sports Night and TSN’s Sportscentre.

Will: If you hadn't become a writer/producer in television, what do you think you would have done with yourself?

Al: I would have studied architecture and furniture design and hopefully been practicing both skills. But knowing what I know now, if I could do something else I’d go to business school and start businesses. I’m loving the business side of the industry more and more. And I have a not so secret dream to have a tree farm and hope to one day.

Will: What the hell's a tree farm?

SONG&ARTIST? - "If you’ll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty when you call me
You can call me Al."

Me And Al(ly) Magee...(Part V)

"It's all about good design."

Okay, now we're getting to the nitty gritty - most excellent Creative Consultant and Canuck TV producer Al Magee digs into two topics of interest to most of us...the making of quality drama and future of Dramatic TV and Feature Films in Canada.

Read on!

Will: So what’s Al Magee’s take on what is necessary to make another long running Canadian hit like DaVinci’s Inquest or Due South or Cold Squad or Traders or Street Legal (Regenesis also seems heading down that road)?

Al: I have no secret to a hit one hour show or I’d be rolling in them, but I do have a bunch of opinions, some earned and some purely speculative.

The only hit one hour show I worked on was Slings and Arrows and I was a spear carrier to Bob Martin and Susan Coyne’s genius. (Ask producers Niv and Danny, they’ve got the touch.) I think Regenesis is a success because it is unique, it is rigorously produced by a strong production company and team and it has committed support from its broadcaster. That combination has allowed the show to mature and gain momentum and build an audience. It takes time, (more than one season) to discover a series, to learn from the audience and to process all of that learning into stronger characters, stronger stories and a stronger series design, which payoff with audience.

On the speculative opinion side – popular television is made by people who live and love television, not by people taking a break from feature film careers. Which is not to say you can’t do both. Slings was loaded with feature people, and certainly the actors, the producers and the director have great success in features, but they also have great experience and respect for the craft of television story telling and dedicated themselves to that. So too do the team at Regenisis. The industrial series that we make never hit too big in Canada because they smell so inauthentic. It’s not so much fun to watch a guy from a salad dressing commercial dressed up like an Alien spewing gibberish on a set full of flashing lights. But those series give us all great experience and keep us alive and make it possible to develop an industry. And sometimes they make it harder to develop an audience. (And by the way that is not a reference to Stargate, which is a favorite of mine, great television made by an incredibly talented group of people.)

Can we get a one hour series that takes off the way our half hours like Corner Gas and Little Mosque can? Maybe, and maybe if the one-hours follow a similar route as the half hour hits – authentically Canadian, not pretending or aspiring to a US primetime aesthetic, and giving the audience something accessible that is not available on a network simulcast. It takes a perfect triangle to get any series right but it’s more important on a one hour because of the pressure on the writing to be sustainable. So the triangle of a skilled writer with a strong point of view, a producer who knows how to work with writers and broadcasters and banks, and a broadcaster who is unflinchingly committed to the series is essential. I’ve had first hand experience on each side of the triangle and at various points in my life as a writer, as a producer and as a broadcaster, I’ve been the one to screw things up. It’s not one of those triangles that works with two sides out of three. It takes all three. So can I revise my pretentious label and call it not the Perfect Triangle, but the Perfect Storm.

The world doesn’t need another TV series the way it needs cures for what ail us, so the making of TV series is an illogical enterprise from the get go. In my twenty some years, all of the successes I’ve been a part of have had perfect symmetry on what I’ll now call my triangle theory. If you’ll permit me the temporary pretensions of naming my own theories:

Slings and Arrows had a head writer in Bob Martin with a unique imagination and singular point of view. It had producers in Danny and Niv and Sari who are very creative, know how to lead projects, how to marshal resources, how to bridge production and broadcast, and it had a team at Showcase that was maniacally committed to the enterprise. Speaking purely from my experience on that show from the broadcast side at Showcase, we were rigorous and respectful with the development, the creative team completely engaged with us for full debate, and as a result the project maintained one singular point of view and a commitment from everyone to stay on the same page regardless of the pain. Hence there was no pain. That takes great commitment and leadership from all sides which we don’t often experience.

On the creative side, the cliché that it’s all about good writing is only partially true. It’s all about good design. Good design requires the committed input of the writer(s), the producers, and the broadcaster. The broadcaster has to come to the project with an actual tested set of information about their audience not just wacky guesses and misinformation and insecurity that will undermine everyone’s confidence. From the writers it takes a commitment to the project, to the ongoing development of the project, to the responsible integration of all the input, good, bad and otherwise, and to managing their own sense of attachment to their best ideas that just won’t fly without getting pissy and passive aggressive and throwing their hands up. It’s toughest on the writers and we have a lot of extremely talented writers who can write brilliant material, and we need to support and develop those writers to gain the skill to manage their own temperament and attachments so they can apply their talent to what may at the time appear like the most undermining of notes and conditions that get placed on their work.

We need leadership and we need to commit to each other. We need leadership from the broadcasters and I’m feeling new inspired leadership from places like the CBC, and Showcase and certainly from Canwest (I’m simply not in communication with CTV so have no first hand experience.) We need leadership from the creative community, in the form of stories that the capable and qualified writers are dying to tell, and we need leadership from the producers to create workable relationships with the writers and showrunners and create partnerships with broadcasters to develop the vision collectively and get buy in from all the stakeholders. Mostly we just need to work harder and smarter and get off the sense of entitlement that sabotages our work when the going gets tough.

We also need leadership and collaboration from the agents. All the writers are represented, and we now live at a time of great opportunity and it’s time for agents and producers to work collaboratively to get projects made. We have some incredibly good smart agents in Canada and they need to take a more active role in getting material out there, in creating opportunity for their clients, and for helping their clients to develop their individual business plans and careers. The agents that take a leading role in the development of their clients work and working relationships are about to find themselves very handsomely rewarded.

We all aspire to HBO standards, but we rarely actually do the heavy lifting on the series design to get to an HBO standard. HBO does a few things that we can learn from. Their series take place in worlds that we don’t have access to but have a strong curiosity about. Worlds that we have not seen or rarely see on television. These shows are written and produced by creative people with strong points of view, with a voice, David Chase, Darren Star, Alan Ball to name a few. These writers have a story they want to tell. They don’t 'just' want to make a TV series. The network process at HBO is rigorous – and respectful. It’s not about beating up on the creative people, it’s about providing the kind of leadership that a production needs from a broadcaster – real audience information, guidance toward that audience, and committed feedback toward an agreed upon set of creative and business goals, not a random collection of opinions from people trying to impress their bosses and protect their jobs at the expense of the project. It takes commitment to the rigor of completing the design of the project, which includes ongoing exploration of theme, character, story, the world, the franchise and all of the ways these ideas can be communicated within the box that is being built around the series premise.

All that said, there is some exciting material in development and production at the networks right now and I’m very optimistic about what’s about to come out.

Will: Awesome answer, even if I happen to like aliens spewing gibberish. Okay, we’re mostly about TV here at Uninflected Images Juxtaposed, but you’ve done a fair amount of work on a lot of Canadian feature films. What are some of your favourite experiences and where do you see the feature film industry here in Canada going in the future (as in, what needs to happen for it to get on the public’s radar, at least in English Canada)?

Al: I’ve been lucky enough to work in a creative capacity on over 50 produced features. I have a few films out right now or coming out that I story edited: Lucid, Poor Boy’s Game, Fido which are all good films. My favorite experience was Highway 61, for almost a year me and Bruce and Don spent our nights in a crappy apartment on College Street beating out a story and revising scripts. That was huge fun and being a part of Bruce’s ascent to the throne was a blast. I was a producer on Sam & Me, Deepa Mehta’s first feature, which was the fifth film I’d worked on with Deepa, and to be a part of the launch of that kind of talent is hugely rewarding. I’ve worked with Clement Virgo a couple of times and it’s a challenge to serve him well and I like that challenge. And I’ve recently committed to an emerging super star Chaz Thorne, who wrote Poor Boy’s Game, and just directed his first feature from a script we worked on called Pushing Up Daisies.

What has to happen to get on the public’s radar? We have to give the public a few hits. Bon Cop Bad Cop was a step forward. I have huge hopes for Fido, and if not Fido then the next film that its director Andrew Currie makes, he’s a huge talent. But the system we have is not a workable system. Wayne Clarkson (at Telefilm Canada) is doing everything he can to make it workable but as an industry we’re not doing enough to help him. I see three obstacles:

One – the creative feedback system on feature films in development is intolerably stupid and does not work. The writing gets micromanaged by people and institutions taking a destructive approach to the notes. Most of the notes are written by readers who are frustrated wannabe writers trying to break into the industry.

Two - the screenwriters are not rigorous enough in their approach to the writing. We have very talented and skillful directors and producers and crews, but the majority of our feature writers are by and large unwilling to do the rigorous intellectual work demanded by long form drama. I know because I’ve worked with a lot of them. There is a sense of entitlement that we all have the right to make features and people use that to let themselves off the hook (now it feels like I’m ranting). In my opinion the best Canadian long form drama is on CTV where the television process is more workable and produces more consistency.

Three - the system is not self sustaining and focuses on emerging talent so it is mostly an industry of first timers. The senior people gravitate to television or move to the U.S.. We need emerging filmmakers to keep it fresh but our system also has to sustain careers and we need to be watching the fifth and sixth feature films of our writers and directors. And not just the four or five filmmakers who are the exception. And it should be noted that those great Canadian filmmakers (Bruce, Atom, Mr. Cronenberg etc.) are also exceptional people with remarkable talent, skill and commitment.

To get on the public radar we just have to make better films and we have to be more respectful of the audience.

Will: Phew...wow. Thanks for all that, Al. Much to mull over and a lot to take to heart.



TO BE CONTINUED...

Me And Al(ly) Magee...(Part IV)

On and on it goes. When Al Magee starts talking TV, it's tough to know when to say when. Though I suppose it begins with all the questions --- okay, it's my fault. But check out what Al has to say about pitching...very astute.

Will: One final question about Smart Woman Survival Guide...you've been working on the international roll-out with Tom Gutteridge, Fremantle Media North America's former CEO and now head of his own shop, Em2. Why did you choose to work with Tom? Is there more interest in the finished programs or in purchasing Smart Woman as a potential format?

Al: Tom Gutteridge is a very inspiring person and he knows everyone in the world of television. When Tom was CEO of Fremantle he was looking for a producer to partner with on Fremantle formats for Canada. He asked around and was lead to me. We hit it off and were working on a deal to produce his formats in Canada when suddenly he left Fremantle. We stayed in touch and when I had a rough cut of Smart Woman I sent it to Tom and he committed to it right away. He took us thru MIP in October and introduced us to dozens of potential partners both distributors and format producing partners. We’re still working on that.

We went quite far down a road with an American broadcaster for both the sale of the Canadian episodes and the production of American episodes and just recently learned that they have new management and are using the money earmarked for our show to bolster their bid for Nascar. I was a bit tender for a few days after that but now have to laugh. I’d put my money on Nascar in America too. International buyers went nuts for the show and we have offers from the biggest international distributors with interest in both the completed shows and the format. It has been a fast and overwhelming education for me and a journey that is really just getting started and I’m struggling to keep up with the momentum on Smart Woman Survival Guide.


We’ve just delivered our second season, which we shot in HD and upgraded everything that we could upgrade and the show is amazing. We’re shooting the third season right now.

Will: What are your short and long term goals for your company, Magee TV?

Al: The long term goal is to be thought of as a go-to trusted innovator of new ideas and formats with a proven value to our broadcasters, our creative partners, our producers and creative teams. Our goal is to be a top of mind team for delivering impactful series. The television industry is super fickle and I’m always trying to create or find the next great idea that is going to disrupt the flow and create the next set of opportunities.

Short term, I’m working on a national mentoring project to bring new talent into the television industry, and want to be the company of choice for emerging talent to pitch new ideas and we’re committed to providing a nurturing and rigorous creative environment. Short term we’re looking to replace the three series that we just completed. And short term I try to get thru the week without dropping the many balls I juggle.

Will: Have you reached a pinnacle now where networks are coming to you with ideas or for ideas on a preferred basis? Or is it same as it ever was and about grinding it out?

Al: It varies. I’ve had networks come to me with ideas and that is a welcome boost of confidence and obviously great for business. But I grind it out like everyone else. Ideas and economies are what is most important to broadcasters and there is very little loyalty to individual producers or companies so we all tough it out every day.


Will: Has your pitch process changed over the years? The Al I know is an awesome pitcher. How did you come by your skills and what are your top pitching pointers for newbies?

Al: Thanks for the compliment. I’m a conversational pitcher. I don’t make a big deal about staging a pitch I just work it into conversation. I got my pitching skills by working in development for 20 years and living by the rule of “you only eat what you kill.” If I don’t sell I don’t eat so I’m just another version of Willie Loman.

But seriously – I take Jan Miller’s pitching course every year. I do. And I take notes, and I reframe all my current pitches when I’m in that course and I consult with Jan. I have great success that way. Pitching is about creating opportunities for people. I learned a while ago that nobody wants to be sold, they want to solve their problems and realize their own dreams. Nobody gives a shit about your crappy project they’re too busy trying to solve their own problems and dreaming their own dreams so if you and your project can create an opportunity for them – they’ll seize it, and if not, they won’t. If your pitch doesn’t solve a problem or create an opportunity for your target then it’s just talk.

I always do the homework. I keep track of what the broadcasters are looking for, how they’re planning, what they have on air now, how their current schedule is performing and how they are competing and I look at how my projects and ideas can create opportunities for them to meet their goals.

Will: How much writing do you actually still do? Is that an enjoyable process for you?

Al: Now I mostly write notes. Some days I write good notes, other days not so much. I don’t write too many scripts any more. For my lifestyle shows I write the formats, the storylines and do a final pass on the host on camera scripts. On my scripted shows I work in the writers room with the writers and spend time on each iteration of each script but the heavy lifting is done by a head writer and writing team. At Showcase I’ll have up to 12 series on the go at one time so all my ideas tend to go into those series and I don’t have much interest in writing after spending half the day on all that material.

I do like writing, more in the room with other writers than alone. And I have a writers heart so I tend to write ridiculously long emails and letters and notes. I can type faster than I can think which is a curse some times.

Will: What personality traits and/or skills do you think best serve you in your work? What qualities do you look for in your staff, or in creative people you work with?

Al: I value integrity, impeccability and creative. But if people aren’t impeccable with their word then I don’t really care how creative they are. I’m a neat freak and a germaphobe so they have to be able to roll with that. I can create a fair bit of chaos so I like order and dependability around me so they need to be able extremely organized. I work with a lot of self described bossy women. I like people to be outspoken and fearless and clear about their communication. I try to balance out the dreamers and the doers. I can get a lot done but mostly I’m a dreamer. Toni Miceli our VP is a doer. She could run a small country.

And I can’t stress enough – the quality of being able to keep your word. Some people think they can get away with being flakey but they can’t. Many of the key people on our team have been together for eight years because there is such a high degree of trust. Production is hard enough without having to worry about trusting the people you’re working with.

Will: Note to self...tone down my flakey!


TO BE CONTINUED...

Me And Al(ly) Magee...(Part III)

Yes, there's more Magee...lots more Magee.

Next we delve into the reality/lifestyle shows Al's been involved with over the years - his assessment of this form of television and where it could be going is pretty sweet...


Will: Designer Guys was a huge international hit and one of the first real personality-driven lifestyle shows, certainly from/in Canada at least. Did you find Chris and Steve to fit the show concept or was it created around them, and how were you subsequently able to so successfully re-invent them into two more series?


Al: Designer Guys was built around what Steven and Chris could and could not do on television. We followed their professional decorating process and got them on camera and tried to do something fresh where character and personality were as much a part of the story as the presentation of information and the makeover. We found Steven as a columnist on another series and when we had lunch with him he brought Chris and the two of them together were hilarious.

Shaping additional series around them (e.g. Design Rivals) was a challenge because the audience loved them as the Designer Guys. Change was difficult and not instantly embraced. But what Chris and Steven have that can work in any format is a genuine love for people. They really care and want to help people make their dreams come true and that comes thru in everything they do.


They’re beautiful human beings and it shows on camera.

Will: Yeah well, they always struck me as having waaay too much fun, but that's just me. Now, you've been involved with a significant number of food-related lifestyle programs. Are you a foodie yourself? What do you see as the new face of food lifestyle?

Al: I am a bit of a foodie. My partner Melanie is possibly the best cook in the universe. Seriously. I get unbelievable meals several times a week. Then I eat fish sticks and chicken fingers with the kids when its my turn to cook. I’ve been lucky that with association with the Food Network I’ve been treated to a lot of incredible meals. Who is the new face of food lifestyle? I never get tired of Nigella’s face, and Ms. Delaurentis of Everyday Italian just might be the most beautiful face on television. Canada does need a new face for Food Network though they are doing great work in new forms of documentary and reality shows that transcend the need for a face. They’ll do something surprisingly innovative very soon.

Will: Love By Design was an interesting show, and perhaps your first foray into the hybrid lifestyle series? Do you think it may have been a show ahead of its time?

Al: I’d love to think it was a show ahead of its time but maybe it was just as show that didn’t have a time. It was a huge pain to produce and got all tied up in weird US deals and became a bit of a nightmare. The actual format was a lot of fun and working with Richard Yearwood was a step toward working with actors in a lifestyle context. It was my second attempt to blend character with lifestyle and to tell a personal story as well as a process story. It all seems a bit cliché now but when we were making those shows there were no models to draw on and we took a lot of heat for what we were trying to do.

Will: The landscape of lifestyle programming has changed significantly in the last five to ten years. What are some of your observations? How have you managed to stay on or even ahead of the curve? Where do you see the opportunities being, especially for new writers and producers?

Al: Lifestyle is at a real turning point right now. In Canada our celebrities are from the lifestyle world. I’ve been mobbed out in public when in the company of my hosts, and have walked in malls with some of our biggest drama stars and not been noticed. The challenge right now is the cookie cutter models that we’re forced into. Almost every lifestyle show tells the same story beat for beat and the broadcasters seem reluctant to try new models. Instead they add gimmicks that get repetitive quickly.

Right now we have makeover shows, expert intervention shows, skills elimination/competition shows, walk-in-my-shoes shows, and those get spiced up with varying degrees of ambush and gimmick. But these formats all have a bankable narrative structure around an easy to follow process that delivers a satisfying result. It was decorating, then construction and now it’s real estate that is super hot and we see that the property shows are rating very very high.

Documentary is interbreeding with lifestyle to create some fun new formats. I like shows like Family Restaurant and must admit to watching the Superstar Challenge shows. I don’t know anyone who watches the paranormal shows. I’ve got some ideas built around music, and fresh talent, and what I really want to do is re-invent the old school magazine show. My attention span is only getting shorter and as I watch more and more You Tube I’d rather watch a magazine show with five or six short stories than one long story in a predictable format with a predictable ending.

If I’ve stayed ahead of the curve it’s by designing shows around unique talent.


Even Fixing Dinner which on one level was a fairly conventional show, was designed around the unique talents of Sandi Richard who had a real sense of mission around saving family’s dinner hours. You can’t make that stuff up. There are opportunities for emerging writers and producers but the mistake they make is they underestimate how hard it is to make these shows. By episode six the talent become divas, and stay divas until the third season, and you have to generate all of your content without the aid of a room full of screenwriters. The budgets are tight and getting tighter and there is so much choice out there it’s a challenge to build a good brand and keep it on air. I’ve been lucky. And I’ve worked with some excellent production executives at the channels. But I’m always looking for the next big thing.

Will: Speaking of the next big thing, you've gotten a lot of press about Smart Woman Survival Guide and how it is a new kind of drama/lifestyle hybrid series. Tell us how the project evolved. Is it true W Network was reportedly so happy with season one they greenlit season two and three before one went to air?


Al: First – yes, W was so happy with the season one series that they greenlit the second season at our wrap party, before we had gone to air. It was a very brave and bold move by our broadcaster and I’ll forever be in the debt of Joanna Webb and Maria Armstrong and Vibika Bianchi for creating such an unparalleled opportunity. The quick turnaround showed real faith and support and allowed us to keep our cast and crew and facilities and maintain a very very very low budget for the second and third season. It was a major moment – Maria Armstrong our production executive went to the stage to toast the cast and crew and said, “oh by the way, we’re ordering 26 more episodes so get back to work.” There was about five seconds of silence then a hundred people went absolutely apeshit. It was very cinematic. That kind of faith creates a crushing pressure that we’re trying to live up to. Fingers crossed!

The project evolved out a coffee meeting with Maria Armstrong and Vibika Bianchi of W. We had them to a “meet the team” meeting at our office where they asked for a “survival guide” for women. I pitched three or four ideas and they went for the behind-the-scenes idea. They liked the idea of a show within a show and having characters that could search out answers, as well as present information. It was a bit of a bear to develop and I worked with Ramona Barkert a young writer that my agent Glenn Cockburn had been pushing, and my producer Morgan Drmaj, then we brought in Claire Ross Dunn as a senior writer and got a green light. It changed about four times in the writing process to settle on what it became in season one.


After season one aired we got so much conflicting feedback on what worked and what didn’t work that our heads were spinning, and truthfully remain somewhat spun. For season two we removed a lot of the on screen graphics and simplified what remained. We lost all the sound effects and direct to camera demonstrations. We did a great deal of work on the characters and worked with Scott Sedita a Hollywood acting coach who wrote a brilliant book called The Eight Characters of Character. With Scott we revised the design of four of our seven characters and that has made a big difference. We also fixed up our sets and brought in some new directors so we didn’t kill our main director Stephen Hall who did the hard work of setting up the look of the series.

Will: Ah yes, the most awesome Stephen Hall. So how do you finance your shows? Do you have to muck through the Telefilm/CTF and/or Tax Credit forms like the rest of us, or have you as über producer found a simpler way of getting the money?

Al: I muck it out like everybody else. I’ve yet to find the magic bullet for financing. I use license fees, tax credits, distribution advances, and every government fund available. I’m looking for answers to the financing questions. We never get the paperwork from the broadcasters in time to have the cash to shoot so I run a huge personal line of credit on my house and teeter on the edge of bankruptcy all the time.

Will: Unfortunately, that sounds just like a typical Canadian producer...he's human!


TO BE CONTINUED...

Me And Al(ly) Magee...(Part II)

As an aside, I'm sure these interviews are snooze material for most readers, especially those outside Canada, but....whatever. There's still a lot valuable insight to be gained IMHO (Al's assessment of what makes him a 'go to' guy is the template for how to be a good creative consultant). And I do feel it's important to dole out the occasional praisejob, especially to our own who are actually making it in indigenous film and TV. There's not enough of that done in this country, the praisejobs, I mean...

Anyway, continuing on with my discussion with Canadian TV producer and Creative Consultant extraordinaire...Al Magee

Will: One of your first in-house jobs was as director of development at Sunrise Films in Toronto. What did that experience teach you about story editing and writing? And about running your own company?

Al: That was a very formative experience. For four years very early in my career I was exposed to Canadian and US networks and cable channels and got to work with all the best writers in Canada of the late 80’s, people like Tony Sheer and Jay Tietel, Janet MacLean, and Charles Israel, and I worked on all of Deepa Mehta’s early films. I learned the process of series development on Danger Bay. And I got to work very closely with Paul Saltzman, who was very generous with information and remains a good friend to this day.

What did I learn about running my own company – probably things like how to manage a development slate, how to manage people, and how to stay solvent. I learned how to run a company from Clark Donnelly at Westwind and how to lead teams from observing John Gill my awesome boss at Showcase.

Will: You recently commented the best gig you ever had was as development and production supervisor for CBC Regional. Why was it so great? What did it teach you?

Al: That must be a misquote, my best ever gig was my Showcase Network gig, but CBC regional was a great gig too. When I worked with CBC I had the opportunity to spend five years traveling to every corner of Canada and working with creative teams in all the regions. I learned a ton. I worked with Joe Novak the regional director at the time and we put 30 series on the air over five years. We developed a regional schedule from nothing.

It was during the early and mid nineties just before Speciality television launched so a lot of what we did was the first wave of non fiction lifestyle television in Canada.

Will: The CBC gig subsequently led to a raft of consulting in Scandinavia. What was it like working in Europe? What lessons could we learn from how they do things there?

Al: The big lesson from Europe was that all audiences really crave homegrown hits. I worked on a show in Finland called Tutto Jutto, a crazy cross between Lawrence Welk and the Newlywed Game. On Thursday nights 3 million of the 5.5 million population watched Tutto Jutto. It’s no wonder that our own hits have such an idiosyncratic homegrown feel.

And the professional sensibility in Europe is the reverse of here; the producers and broadcasters don’t take themselves too seriously, but they take the work and their responsibility to the production community and the audience very seriously.

Will: You’ve been playing this Canadian film/TV game for a long time now, and have done way more ‘behind the scenes’ work than just about anyone I know (I’ve never seen someone with so many story editor/creative consultant credits). How did you get to a position of being that ‘go to’ guy, especially for Showcase and the CBC? Are you hired separately by each show, or do you have an overall network(s) deal of sorts (as I discussed with Hart Hanson and his deal at Fox)?

Al: Tough to answer the how I became the ‘go to’ guy without sounding like a dick but I’ll try.

I sweat every single job and do it with a neurotic perfectionism. I always worry that every job will be my last. I have a few skills that serve me well. I understand how narrative works and I see the patterns in an individual story. I know how to listen. I can carry the equation of a particular story in my head for as long as it takes to get it written, and can hold the writer accountable to that story in a way that empowers the writer. I love and respect writers and have a real affection for other people’s ideas and a respect for what drives them to create projects. And I have a facility for negotiating the sometimes conflicting needs of the writer, the producer, and the broadcaster.

If I had to give one answer, I know how to channel a story out of the mind of a creator and coach them on how to complete it to the satisfaction of the all the people they have to answer to.

Will: That's an AWESOME answer. Okay, let’s stroke Trailer Park Boys for a moment. Were you involved with that series right from the get go? How much did you help shape it? And does that involvement extend to today (and if so, how have your ‘notes’ changed over the years to keep up with the times and the ever-shifting television landscape)?

Al: I got involved in Trailer Park Boys at the pitch stage. That was Norm Bolen’s baby and he sent me out to Halifax to coax the series out of the guys. We spent three days locked in a room and came out with a series. I channeled it out of (showrunner) Mike Clattenburg. The genius of Trailer Park Boys is all Clattenburg and his team, I helped get it out of his head and into a form that would support it as a television series. And I had the huge privilege of then working with them, and with Rachel Fulford at Showcase on every single draft of every script and every rough cut and fine cut of every episode.

How do my notes help shape it? I work as a promise keeper for Mike and make sure I know what the goals are at the beginning of the season and then help the team achieve those goals by shaping story, responding to scripts, and offering ideas on character and story throughout the season. On the first season I’d write pages of notes on every script and edit. On the seventh season I send a half page list on all the stuff that made me laugh out loud. My season seven notes are more like fan mail than broadcaster notes; those guys are very expert now.

Will: How much involvement did you had with more recent scripted series like Slings And Arrows? How do you think it turned out? Anything you’d suggest they try differently knowing what you know now?

Al: I worked with Tara Ellis on season one of Slings and Arrows and functioned as the writer’s story editor. There were three super talented writers and us at Showcase so I did a lot of work on the set up of season one, finding the story model and working with Bob Martin to balance the on and off stage story telling.

In season two and three I gave notes on all the scripts and edits, but those later notes read like love letters. As soon as it knew what it was, Slings and Arrows was effortless and brilliant. Rough drafts read like finals, and rough cuts screened like picture locks. Bob Martin is a frigging genius.

Will: Notes that read like love letters...awesome. Shifting gears slightly…Best. Concert. Ever. Okay, you can have more than one but which stand out?

Al: Best Concert ever – that’s a crazy question. Supertramp at the CNE in 1978 or 79, the Crime of the Century Tour with the trippy train film. Pink Floyd at Ivor Wynne Stadium in the mid seventies – first time I did acid. Jeff Healey at Clintons before he was a Jeff Healy.


TO BE CONTINUED...

Me And Al(ly) Magee...(Part I)

In what's turning into my continuing series profiling influential and inspirational Canadian TV professionals (aka the few industry players I actually know), find to follow a really long interview with producer, writer, creative consultant, mentor to many and all round cool dude Allan Magee.



If you've been in this business a while in Canada, or even if you haven't, you've probably worked with Al. He's not only one of the busiest, but is also one of our most sought after talents over the past couple decades or so. From his drama creative consulting credits like the Showcase originals; Trailer Park Boys, Kenny vs. Spenny, Bliss, Naked Josh, Slings & Arrows, and Moccasin Flats...to his story editing of dozens of features including Canadian indie hits CUBE, RUDE, ECLIPSE, HIGHWAY 61, ROADKILL, and BLOOD & DONUTS.... Al is one of the 'go to' guys.

Magee is also president of Magee TV Inc., a television production company dedicated to creating innovative new formats for international audiences; recent series as a creator, writer and producer include The Smart Woman Survival Guide, So Chic, Partydish, Design Rivals, Fixing Dinner, Designer Guys and Love By Design. And if that wan't enough, Al has been a longtime consultant and mentor with the Candian Film Centre.

This email chit chat goes on a while, but it gives a lot of insight into the mind and methods of one of our country's best...


Will: First off - set the scene…where are you situated (as in do you work out of your company office or the Smart Woman’s Guide production offices)…what are you presently working on, and what’s on your desk?

Al: I am situated in the “world headquarters” of Magee TV, which is also the production office and studio for Smart Woman Survival Guide. We have a bunch of industrial spaces scattered throughout an old tent factory on the corner of Logan and Dundas in Toronto. Two are fully outfitted as studios, two are set up as corporate and production offices, one is a big green room and kitchen to serve the crew, another is dressing rooms and space for the actors and the wardrobe/make up team, and lastly an art department shop.

I’m sitting in what we could call my office, a very minimalist 13 x 13 boardroom containing a round Saarinen table, a 42 inch flat screen, a phone and my Crumpler bag full of scripts and rough cuts. On my desk I have half a Subway sub, a stack of paper, and a jug of hand sanitizer. Confessions of a germaphobe. My awesome assistant Neil Huber is just outside my door in what used to be my boardroom, we just switched, and theoretically we share an office but there’s too much crap on my desk so I work in this meeting room.

Will: So, like, what are you exactly? I know we all have to do a little bit of everything to survive up here in Canadian TV, but how do you introduce yourself…as a creative or a business man? Writer? Producer? Creative consultant? What hat are you wearing today?

Al: That’s a tough question to answer so I usually avoid answering it. Today I’m Executive Producer of Smart Woman Survival Guide, and President of Magee TV Inc. But a week ago I was also Professional In Residence at the Canadian Film Centre, and until March 31/07 was the Creative Consultant at Showcase Originals, a post I’ve held for 7 years. I’m retiring that post to focus on production. I am a writer but I don’t do the hard work of writing much anymore. I used to call myself a Script Evangelist, but some people mistook that for something religious and confused my zeal for narrative as a zeal for something else.

I wear a lot of hats, writer, producer, story editor, executive producer, creator, consultant, mentor, coach, trainer, industry ambassador, evangelist, and champion. I try to make stuff happen so I might start just introducing myself as a “Possiblist.” (Though people will probably think I’m trying to be the next Reveen or Chris Angel.)

Will: Did you have a mentor coming up in the business? Or someone that you admired or emulated?

Al: I had a couple of great mentors. The most impactful is Norm Bolen, who showed me how to do most of what I know how to do. Norm is a television God. Joe Novak now of Joe Media gave me a lot of opportunities. Clark Donnelly at Westwind was a real mentor both professionally and personally and created a lot of opportunity for me. Back in the 80’s I got to apprentice with Lionel Siegel a Hollywood pro who relocated to Canada. He was a show runner on Six Million Dollar Man, and Bionic Woman; and I also got to work with David Doritort who ran Bonanza. They taught me a lot. Debby Bernstein used to look out for me when I started out and I always appreciated that.

I always admired Steve Jobs for the way he disrupted our relationship to technology and made it accessible. I am a loyal Mac user. I read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill when I was young enough to take on its lessons and not be cynical, and one of the things the book suggests is an imaginary counsel of people you admire from history. So I’ve used this idea to various degrees of success finding inspiration from the courage of Martin Luther King, the creativity of Salvador Dali, the wisdom of Robert Kennedy, the mad persistence of Francis Ford Coppola and the good comic fortune of Jerry Seinfeld, to name a few. In our industry I’ve always admired Wayne Clarkson, and Bruce MacDonald, and Danny Iron.

Will: You are one of a handful of Canadian producers who is successfully producing both lifestyle and scripted material. What are the differences in working in the two genres for you? Are there similarities? Do you prefer one over the other?

Al: The difference is – lifestyle is way harder and pays much less. Scripted is more fun and pays way more. I guess that’s why we do so much lifestyle. The main difference is in the production cycle and production model. It’s possible to conceive, pitch, produce and deliver a lifestyle series in about 20% of the time it takes to make a scripted series.

What I love about lifestyle is the speed of production, the amount you get to learn about a subject, working with the talent, collaborating with the broadcasters, and that you have to invent the story all the time. There are real similarities in that it is still all about telling great stories with strong characters. I don’t really have a preference. The goal is always to make something that will present a fresh creative challenge for myself and our team and have some impact for our broadcasters and audience.


Will: Talk a little about the development process at Magee TV. Are all ideas generated in-house or do they come from outside/freelance producers and writers as well? Is it the same for both the lifestyle/non-fiction and the half-hour scripted areas of the company? What are currently your development priorities?

Al: Our development process is really taking off. We have a new Director of Development, Shelley Gunness who’s job it is to find material, take pitches, beat the bushes for interesting talent and projects, and manage the day to day on the projects that we have in development. In the past I’ve generated all of our ideas, but I’m bored with the noise in my head and am much more interested in other people’s ideas right now. So we have two documentary series in development with the super talented Rick Green, Creating Creativity, about creativity, and How to Cheat at Poker, about how the science and rules of playing poker impacts everyday life. We have a project that is so close to getting a green light at Food Network Canada that I’m afraid to jinx it. We are developing two lifestyle series with proven talent that we have exclusive arrangements with. And we’re preparing to pitch two scripted comedies.

I’m also very interested in new voices and mentoring emerging writers and producers and am setting up a system to work with new talent. We’re looking for high impact lifestyle series for women, ideally something for Slice and something for the W Network. And we’re looking for half hour scripted comedy for Showcase and CBC. Last month we had our first D-Day, a very rigorous full day brainstorm with 18 of our team going thru an idea generation clinic and 7 idea games. We got about 200 good ideas out of that and really transformed the creativity at our company. That first D-Day was subtitled “The Hidden Talent” project. I’m looking for a theme for our next D-Day.

Will: How about "The Prairie Talent" project? Next question…very important: fav band/musician of all time?

Al: My favorite band of all time is the Rolling Stones. Perhaps a bit of a cliché but I first saw them in the 1970’s, followed them thru the 80’s and 90’s, and saw them again in Ottawa in the summer of 2006 where they were even more impressive with age.

Will: I believe we first met way back when in Toronto (’94?) when you were consulting on our mutual friend Stephen Hall’s show ‘Utopia Café’ and you guys invited me to observe a focus group test of the program. I totally dug that experience of spying through the one way mirror on the participants viewing and criticizing the program, though it could be pretty hard on the ego (or Stephen’s at any rate). Do you ‘test’ all the shows you are involved with and how much cred do you give to the process?

Al: I go along with the testing of shows if the broadcaster wants to test them. We used to do a lot of testing back in the nineties at CBC and those tests were sometimes useful. We transformed Utopia Café as a result of the audience testing. I’ve attended tests in the USA where the audience gets little dials to register their enjoyment. They spend the first ten minutes figuring out how to use the dial and always seem to err on the red side of the meter, which is a bad thing when you’re the one being tested. If the person running the test knows what they’re doing, it can be useful. If they don’t it’s a destructive nightmare unlike no other and you may as well become a dentist.

Will: Whhhhrrrrrrr! Ahhhh!

TO BE CONTINUED...


Thanks Al. And thanks to Caroline for supplying some of the questions. More to come….please stay tuned.

Demystifying Producing...

Gearing up to begin teaching another film/video class at the University, this one about producing for film and television. It's my third time doing it (other classes have been screenwriting) and it seems to get a little easier every time. Like anything, it's nice when you can review what worked and what didn't last go around, refine and focus it, and then go do it again.

I build the course around each student conceiving of a pitch for a movie or tv series, writing a short summary or synopsis, mapping out a development plan and schedule, formulating a financing plan and structure, creating a development budget, designing a one sheet, packaging all the materials, and then pitching it to a panel of local producers/network/funding agency people on the last day of class. I do try to focus on navigating the Canadian system, but tend to keep it more about the general 'process' of trying to produce something...anything...highlighting the important things you should always be thinking about as you go through the steps.

And now reading a new book I ordered for a text this semester, and boy...what a winner. It's called 'So You Want To Be A Producer' by Lawrence Turman (The Graduate, Short Citcuit, American History X). It's perfect for this kind of class. Other books I've used focused more on the legal and dealmaking and financing and, quite frankly, all that can be a real turn-off for film students in their early 20's. Not to mention totally overwhelming. So far, Turman's book steers clear of most of that stuff (though not short-changing its importance) and focuses on what producing is and what you need to do and be in order to produce movies and tv well. His model is the Peter Stark Producing Program course at USC - a Master's course he revamped and has run for the past dozen years or so.

Rather than review the book, I'm just going to post excerpts I find interesting or enlightening as I continue to read through it.

Here's the good news: you already are a producer. Yes, really. Because producing is simply thinking ahead, planning, and getting a series of things done to accomplish a goal for yourself. You have to work backward: start by figuring out everything you're going to need for a specific time in the future, and then making sure it's ready when you need it to be ready. Much like inviting your friends to come to your place for a dinner party, you have to 'produce' it.

A film/tv producer is the person who decides an idea, a character, or a story is worth telling. He's the 'starter' and the 'finisher', and therefore involved in every aspect and most details of production. In all cases I arrange the financing, without which a project can't get off the ground. And as the producer, I put together all the necessary crative talent and then act as a guide and sounding board, hopefully enhancing their work and coalescing all into a unified whole.

So would you like a job where you're the one who decides what movie (or tv series) to make, and how it should be made? That's a producer. It's one of those rare professions where you can start at the top, if you control a super, terrific, dynamite script.

Other than that being a really big 'if', seems pretty simple, right?

Stay tuned...