Film Courage: We have this quote here and this is from a forward in your book
and this is by Jay Roach and I don't know if you want to read part of it
and we've only fit a portion of it on the board here we have the rest of it here.
Kelly Edwards, Staff Writer, Author, Producer: Sure, most development execs
producers and even assistants you encounter along the way are solid story crafters and
could directly or indirectly become your collaborators and co-creators if you would.”
Film Courage: dot dot dot “just engage with them enthusiastically as teammates rather than
defensively as critics and saboteurs.” Where does your mind go when you hear that quote?
Kelly: Well what immediately pops to mind is how many
stories I know of people who found a property or found a script or found
a writer and latched on and like a dog with a bone forced that thing into existence right so
I could think of you think about Gina Bailey and with Game of Thrones or
I don't know I don't know I feel like a lot of things that I've done where you find
somebody and you just go I'm so excited about this writer let's figure it out
there's a lot of stories I think that you can you can pull out of that HBO alone like I said
I'm listening to this book right now and it's just like David Levine and True Detective like there's
Franny [Francesca] Orsi in and how she really took I don't know she she took my brilliant
friend and just it was her baby from start to finish now that wasn't on anybody's radar so
what a what a miracle that that she was able to create something along with the team that
she had assembled and the writer and and all of that into something that's so beautiful so
you have to remember that for every failed project there's probably another equally
passionate executive who is putting together something else and sometimes sometimes that
thing that first thing isn't the thing sometimes it's the second thing sometimes it's the third
thing sometimes you just have to keep going until you find the right collaborator or you find that
right idea and it's the right time there's so many again so many pieces of why something works at a
particular time and why something might just miss the mark but we are all part of the same ecosystem
the executives the person who who essentially takes that piece of work that writer
nurtures that writer hopefully in the right way and then gives that that projects the the the
place to flourish into and to grow and I think that no one gets into being an executive with
terrible intentions we don't it's a lot of work so we don't go into it thinking I'm going to go
smash people's dreams and ruin their careers you go in thinking you can help you go in thinking
oh I love this writer so much I love this idea so much let me see how I can help it navigate
through the gauntlet of everything that it needs to in order to get to the finish line
and again I think that the when it when things really hit they're usually surprise
I think sometimes you can see things coming I think when we all saw the pilot of er we knew
it was groundbreaking or CSI the first one was groundbreaking or there are some pieces that just
pop out Breaking Bad they just think that that just sort of automatically blow your your hair
back but sometimes things like Seinfeld that take time to nurture and then become huge and hit and
hit really well and you just don't know you just have to believe in love in the the process and the
the creators and and you have to love story we just we get into it because
we love story we we are the same people that look I'm the perfect example I'm both writer
and executive and they had the ability to to to do both and now I'm able to do both
but I was the same person who watched the 3:30 ABC movie every single day and watched Fred Astaire
and Ginger Rogers and Annette [Funicello] and Frankie [Avalon] and I wanted to be involved in
that storytelling and we all read a ton of books and we all do our homework and so our intentions
are always good we don't always execute them well and we sometimes do have to grow up so I
think back on the the notes that I gave when I was young they would be so different today
and I desperately feel like I want to apologize to every writer I gave notes to when I was too young
to know how it really really works so sometimes we are not quite as skilled as we want to be
and we need to do growing up just like a writer needs to evolve just like the whole process needs
to evolve so but I think that he's absolutely right in that we're all part of the same
big idea which is we all want to see stories created and some of us just
do it on different sides of the of the pro of the process but we are all collaborators
sure but then when someone looks at it in a defensive light is it because you had said
earlier there's so much going on behind the scenes that we don't always know with the network and and
whether it's advertisers or or notes that the fans are giving back different things and so is
the writer privy to all that not always I think there are a lot of there are a lot of meetings
that happen and there's then there's sometimes there's things that that you hold back or you
don't want to I mean there's plenty of stories about I have tons of stories about projects that
you'd be shocked about all this the steps and the things and how many times it might have
fallen apart is that important for the creator to know absolutely not would it hurt that person's
feelings absolutely if they knew exactly what was happening in those rooms it would be devastating
so sometimes that not knowing is not a bad thing sometimes that's why people feel like sometimes
executives are too close to the chest and because things are they change the snap of a finger
so let's just say you've we've got a project it looks like it's going forward but I can't
necessarily tell you for for sure it's going forward because I don't know they might change
they might change the whole direction the minute before I if I pull the trigger too fast and then
they decided not to do something then you've then I've blown that conversation you've already gotten
your hopes up so there's a reason sometimes why they feel really cagey because they don't know
or they haven't been given the authorization to pull the trigger and a perfect example of that is
I can't say it's perfect but so Eunetta Boone who passed away had done a show a pilot called
one-on-one for us and and yet we didn't see it on air until a year after so she she was waiting for
the pickup the year before she was at the party she was waiting for that note for the for we
were in New York and she was waiting for the the notice that she was going to be on stage that next
day I'm pretty sure that that's how it went and we ended up at the last minute not picking that
show up so that was devastating enough but imagine if we had already said you're on stage and then we
told her two seconds before she wasn't gonna be on stage now the good news is we loved it
so much we picked it up the next year and the show was off the races in this amazing show
but sometimes we don't have all the information and then that comes across as cagey deceitful
they're not sharing why are they doing this they just don't know so it's it's a such a terrible
little swirl of silence that sometimes can permeate and that can feel that the that the world
is against you it feels like the execs are against you but then what you don't see is the same exacts
fighting for a project fighting for the life of something I had to fight to get I wasn't allowed
to pick up Malcolm in the Middle at UPN but I fought to get it released in a time when there
was a strict policy that said we do not release projects so they can go on other networks and I
said we need to this needs to exist somewhere now you don't see that in books you don't see that in
I think I might have written put in my book but there you don't you don't hear those stories about
how people do champion and try to nurture and try to foster and try to help why would there
why would there be execs in the room fighting against it so then why is one team want it
and one team doesn't well things things like scheduling come into it so let's just say at
a network you've got you've got a huge board when we were doing our programming for for UPN or even
for Fox they have these gigantic boards and on these boards there's their strips so on one side
it's like the the time slot and then the network or either way time slot in the network and then
each little strip it's a magnetized strip has the name of the show that the pilot that was just
produced and so what we're doing is we're hedging our bets and we're trying to think well if CBS
has all procedurals and we're trying to counter program with all comedies what's the best comedy
that goes up against the series, procedural the drama family drama on NBC the ABC's got comedies
but they're buddy comedies let's go with a family comedy or let's go with a drama so we are trying
to figure out our schedule based on what other people are doing so at the time that we're doing
this this has been again right up right before up fronts so people haven't announced their schedules
when they get announced is when everybody knows specifically when things are happening
so we are trying to counter program and figure out well what's our best slate that's going to do
well against the others because we don't want as a UPN or a or a fox or even if you're thinking these
days with with some of the other networks they don't want the same show to compete against the
same show right they don't want a black female comedy up against another black female comedy
or cannibalize your audience so we're trying to find the spaces where those audiences are are not
being served someplace else that's why sometimes things move forward or don't move forward that's
why somebody might be fighting for for or against maybe they don't love that show or they don't love
that star or they don't think that it's going to do well on for that particular demographic
or whatever there's so many different reasons again those are that's making the sausage that's
the whole other thing that's that's underneath that people don't always hear about do we have
the right audience are people showing up to us for this or can they get this better someplace else.