SwiftPope leads off.
Norm on Cheers seems to drink quite a lot of beer. I don't mean he must, given the level of his glass, I mean he is seen to be drinking a fair bit. Assuming that some scenes require a few takes, I have to wonder whether Norm was drinking real beer or non-alcoholic beer?
George Wendt drank near-beer (3.2 alcohol) that was warm. Delicious it was not. Especially by the fourth take. George earned his money on that show.
notworthreading asks:
Ken, FQ, even thought it isn't going to happen, would you ever consider a job at a network, something along the lines of VP of Development? If so, how would the job look and what would you do?
No. I’m not a corporate guy. The thought of putting on a suit every day, “answering” to someone, dealing with office politics, and ultimately not having the power to make any real decisions is not for me. I suspect I would be a loggerheads with the other executives because my style would be so different from theirs. I would buy scripts from people I trusted then leave them alone. This would cause a major kerfuffle I’m sure. Better to just let someone who really wanted the job have it.
From Rod:
Whose idea is it normally to re-cast a pilot when it gets picked up? The new Cedric the Entertainer sitcom "The Neighborhood" recast two central roles, the new neighbors, played by Josh Lawson & Dreama Walker to Max Greenfield and Beth Behrs. What does a re-shoot cost? Did the showrunners not think their original choices were not strong enough? Was there pressure form the network to get a more "name" star?
The network makes those calls. They either test the show and replace actors who didn’t test well, or if they get a chance to get more well-known actors like Greenfield & Behrs (let’s say the pilots they were in didn’t get picked up), they’ll often make the switch.
At one time it happened very rarely. Now it happens all the time. Unless the show has your name on it, you’re no longer safe.
And finally, Bob Paris asks:
I have been watching GLOW on Netflix and noticed that the episodes are various lengths. I imagine that in your career you have had episodes run long where material that you deemed too good to cut had to be eliminated in the final edit. Since there are no time-slots on a streaming site, this allows episodes to run "long." Do you think this is good or bad - it allows stuff to make it to the final cut that maybe would have been rightfully left on the cutting room floor.
It would be nice to have the flexibility, but the truth is cutting shows down to time usually improves them.
However, on the BIG WAVE DAVE’S pilot we had a hot audience, which resulted in a ten-minute laugh spread. Cutting that down was a bitch.
And there were some MASH episodes that I thought suffered by having to edit them, but normally less is more so I’m okay with adhering to a set time.
Don’t you wish someone forced Judd Apatow to keep his movies down to 90 minutes? Oh, how much better they’d be.
What’s your FQ? Have a safe Labor Day Weekend.
from By Ken Levine
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