Rod starts us off with an editing question.
Who has final say over which take is used? The Showrunner? When you direct an episode of a sitcom, and there are a couple of takes to choose from, has the showrunner ever chosen one of yours that you thought wasn't as good as another? Or even added canned laughter when you thought there shouldn't be any? Do you, as director, get to see the final edit, with laughs, before it airs and offer an opinion? Or are you just a gun for hire, and after the filming, your job is over?
The show runner has the final say in all of these matters. As a director, you receive a first cut from the editor, before the show runner receives it. The editor makes your changes and then it’s out of your hands. If the show runner wants to put something back in he can.
Often times shows come in long and things have to be cut. As a director who has also been a show runner, I anticipate some of the cuts and cover them in such a way that they’re easy to lift. In other words, if everything is in say a master and you want to cut out three lines in the middle, you can’t because the picture will jump. But if you have coverage and the section you want to lose is isolated, it’s easy to remove it seamlessly.
But lots of TV directors don’t do that. And as a show runner it would often drive me crazy that I’d want to make an obvious cut and we had to pull all kinds of tricks to get it because there wasn’t sufficient coverage. It’s actually one of the reasons why I became a director.
From Cd1515:
Hi Ken, went by an old MASH the other day and the “written by” credits listed two names I’ve literally never seen before or since.
It doesn’t matter who they were, but I was curious: in the writing world, are there the equivalent of one-hit wonders, people who somehow got one thing on a show the size of MASH but never did anything ever again?
I think that happened more in the past because shows back then had small staffs and relied way more on freelance writers.
And yes, there are any number of freelance writers who somehow broke in (usually via an impressive spec script) and got an assignment or two, didn’t deliver, and went on to other careers.
It’s one thing to get a break; it’s another to deliver once you get that break.
DyHrdMET queries:
How do writers write in noticeable facial reactions of characters into the script? Or don't they? For example, I'm watching the CHEERS pilot, and seeing Diane's reactions as she meets each character (especially her reaction to the joke "Is there an Ernie Pantusso here? That's you, Coach. Speaking." as she learns his name and we learn a bit about Coach). Where do those reactions get created?
Most of the time reactions are not written into the script. That’s left to the actor. As it should be.
If there’s an ambiguity of how an actor should react to some piece of information, the writer might suggest something like “Diane is horrified,” but better to do that very sparingly.
Something David and I did a lot in scripts based on what we saw on MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW scripts, is end a scene with (hopefully) a big joke and say “SAM REACTS AS WE: DISSOLVE TO:” He'll react however he reacts.
And finally, from James:
I know it's trivial but I'm curious. A few TV shows, namely All in the Family and Cheers, had a big voice-over that said this show "was filmed before a live studio audience." Most shows did not. Why did the Charles Brothers think it was important to put that announcement in, particularly at the beginning of the show? How many people in the audience know or care?
We did that simply because people were complaining that we were leaning too hard on the laugh machine, and we wanted the viewers to know that the laughs were legitimate. There really was an audience laughing.
What’s your Friday Question? Have fun but be safe this weekend.
from By Ken Levine
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