Film Courage: Shannon was it your goal to become a studio executive?
Writer/Instructor and Script Consultant Shannan E. Johnson (The Professional Pen): In the beginning
of my career I was a development and current programming executive on the television side.
Once I left and I went off to do Broadway national tours and I was doing dance companies and all this
other stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with writing, when I came back to Hollywood
it was my intention to get back into development whether that was at a network or a studio or at a
smaller production company. I was pretty open but I realized that I liked to work in the area where
you take people from idea to production and so I probably would have stayed in development but it
would have necessarily been at a network or studio or a production company just wherever I felt like
I would be able to come in and actually be seen and used as a person with all of the knowledge
that I have to offer which can be hard when you go on any job you want to make sure that you're
going to be able to come and be able to bring something to the table so I was looking forward to
being able to do that and obviously it didn't go that way that's how I ended up back into the kind
of scrips consultant area how did you become a studio executive so back in the day there used to
be a program called the entertainment Associates program at NBC Universal so a lot of people know
about Fellowship programs for screenwriters but they're also used to be programs for people who
are interested in being executives now there are a few more that are coming up Lena Waithe's company
Hillman Grad has one diverse representation has one but back then the entertainment
Associates program at NBC Universal was one of the larger ones for television and so there was
an application process and I don't know how many people they would choose each cycle but my cycle
they chose five people I happen to be the only one who was coming from outside of California
because I was in graduate school when I applied I was in film school at the time so of the five
people that were chosen two of us weren't already working at NBC Universal and I was the only one
who came from out of state but that program was basically to help you to jump from the
assistant desk into an executive role because it's very hard to make that transition simply
by sheer numbers there aren't as many executive positions as there are assistant positions and so
if you can imagine everyone on the same floor let's say there are three executives but five
assistants not everybody's going to be able to get that one executive position when it opens up
so this program was to help you to get the skills that were necessary and help you to kind of jump
past that assistant desk and become an executive and so I was able to come in and be a an executive
at the Sci-Fi channel and basically learn the whole business and learn the whole craft while
I was there we always see it in our comments you know Hollywood is all based on nepotism who you
know did you know anyone to get into the program no I didn't and I think that was a good thing and
a bad thing because it proves that not everyone's path is the same so again most of the people who
got in the program were already people who worked at NBC Universal so that means they already had an
upper hand on all of the other applicants in the program because I was in in film school at Florida
State University which means I was in the State of Florida I didn't know anything about this program
I did not know how coveted it was I didn't even know what development meant I can be honest about
that something about film school is that most film schools teach you the creative side they
don't teach you the business side so even though I was in film school for two whole years I didn't
come out understanding what development was or understanding what current programming meant or
anything about the business side of it let alone the TV business side of it because again most
film school programs are going to teach you about features because they're really building writers
writer directors more than they're building all of the other pieces of the puzzle so so yes it is
true that it's mostly about who you know in this particular situation it was about my skill that's
all it could be because I didn't know you know I didn't know anybody I had interned before so I had
already lived in Los Angeles before I had already interned at a lot of places I had already been
on several sets because I wanted to kind of learn the ropes of how to do everything in the business
but I think I must have had an awesome application and my application other than me being able to
talk about myself I don't really remember much about the application but we had to do coverage
I didn't even know what coverage was but I had a natural knack for storytelling and obviously I had
been in a screenwriting program for two years and all we did was sit around and get notes to each
other and as I've told you guys before it was there that one of my instructors said well why
are you so good at helping other people with their stuff and so that's what made me seek information
on are there people out there who just help other people write and I think that's how I got to the
word development which I think is how it got me to the entertainment associates program and
that's how I was able to apply and so the program so it had the the rounds of applications we had to
do coverage and then we had maybe we had a phone interview I don't remember but then they also flew
me in I was the only person who's coming from out so I don't know if other people who got to that
point also got flown in but we got flown in we had to meet with several different departments so I
met with people in diversity I met with people in TV I met with people in in film I met with people
all over the lot and just me being me I just remember being very honest when they would ask me
questions about well what are you watching and why and why do you like this and why don't you like
that and so I remember sitting in one particular office and I'm at NBC Universal and they were
asking me about the things that I was watching and liking and two of those things happened to be NBC
shows and they wanted to know well why are you saying these things about the shows and I don't
know if other people would have been backed up and tried to find something positive to say you know
what I mean but for me it was like well here are the reasons and so one of them was Friday Night
Lights which I think is one of the best TV shows to ever be made however as a Texas girl who grew
up with Family Guy, football even though I could care less about football what I understood was
you have Friday night it's coming on at a Friday night guess where everybody in Texas is at their
own football games so it seems to me that you've set this show up for failure that's basically you
know what I said to them and then another show that that was out on at the time was Heroes I
really loved Heroes I actually did a speck of Heroes and that's what got me into the final
round of the Warner Brothers writing fellowship at that time and I said you know season one was
awesome but in season two you broke all of the rules and therefore now we're a little bit lost
about what this show really is and I said that to them not even considering myself you know giving
a critique or giving notes or anything like that that's just how I felt about it naturally and I'm
just going to go say maybe that's the thing that got me in the program you know what I mean because
they could see that I could explain to them what the issue was and how I felt like you could fix
that issue so even though nepotism in the way of who you know not necessarily who you're related to
may have gotten some of the people in the program I know for me it was pure applique education
thousands of people applied and I happened to be picked as one of the five people to do it
what was your day-to-day job as a creative executive so here's the full transparency of
it I did not have any idea so I walked into this program thinking it was going to be a program that
taught me how to be a creative executive what I didn't understand already and it's probably
because I was coming from the outside in which is why I said earlier about the the good and the bad
of it so the good of it is it's possible you can come from the outside and come in the bad of it
is I don't have any information because I've been on the outside so I don't know what a development
executive does I applied for this because I thought it would be a program and I like to learn
in a classroom setting but that's not what this was it was a job so here I am sitting at my desk
what am I supposed to be doing the other people who were already in the industry who are already
assistants and coordinators knew what they should jump in to do because they had already
been covering the desk of executives they had already been seeing and being been exposed to
what executives did I had no exposure I had no nothing I thought I'm going to get a desk and
people are going to give me screenplays and I'm going to tell them what's good bad what needs to
be worked on that's what I thought the job was it was not the job was it part of it sure but a very
very tiny part of it so I ended up having a slower learning curve than the rest of the people in my
cohort they were able to get in and go meanwhile I sat around a lot waiting on someone to tell me
what am I supposed to be doing I didn't even know what questions to be asking and that can be very
discouraging to a person and I'm someone who's always on top of it I'm very confident I know
what I'm doing Etc so it was very discouraging to me because I felt like failure or I felt like I
had been set up to fail even though I'm sure that's not that wasn't anyone's intention so
once I finally realized what I should be doing my day-to-day could be taking meetings with people as
an executive it's your job to kind of be a mental Rolodex of Hollywood you should know the managers
you should know the agents you should know the directors you should know the writers you should
know the up and coming writers because if you're in a room and someone says hey we need it's your
job to go I know a few people let me contact them let me get their their samples let me figure out
how to pull them into the conversation so a lot of that was that and so since I was new to the
game and had come from the outside I needed to start my my Rolodex so I had to figure out how to
reach out to people and be able to contact them just so that we can start a relationship and so
that's why people may hear general meeting often because some of that that basically just means
let's just get on the phone or let's just have a a an in-person visit so that we can just get to know
each other so I can know what kind of writer you are you can know a little bit about me I can add
you to my mental Rolodex it doesn't mean you came in for a job just means you came in so that we can
have a conversation and kind of get to know each other it's like a date all it doesn't mean we're
going to be boyfriend and girlfriend at the end but it does mean that we got to know each other
a little better so I could be doing that I could be taking pitches so that means people who think
that our brand is for their project would come in and Pitch it to us and we'd be able to listen to
it ask questions whatever it is we have and then it would be our job as the more Junior executives
to go in and then pitch to our EVP about what we just saw and if we think that it's something that
we should have here at our on our Network and at the network that I was at which is sci-fi we had
unscripted and scripted and we had development and current all happening in one place and so
for everyone who doesn't know the difference so scripted is going to be your TV shows like friends
where it's actually scripted you have writers who have been brought on a writing staff to write the
screenplays whereas unscripted is what we kind of know as reality TV some of it can be docu-series
some of it can be a little dramatic so it might have a tiny piece of scripted to it but it doesn't
mean that they're writing screenplays and then development means we are developing the project
to be on air so this is this is the person who if you're a new screenwriter or even if you're not a
new screenwriter but you have a project and you want someone to buy it you're going to pitch it
to the development people those are the people who are going to help you to get it to the stage of
production then your current programming people are the people who then take the baby after you
get it to production and take it on for the rest of its life so however long it's going to stay
on television it stays in the current programming department so that would mean that features don't
have a current programming department because features are not on television so since I was
in TV we were doing all of the above and in my position I got to kind of move around and
do all of the above so whether we were taking pitches for a scripted or taking pictures for
unscripted or I was looking at the scripts coming in from the writing staffs for the current shows
so at that time let's say it was Stargate Universe so every single script that was going to go on the
air had to come to the executives first for our round of notes before it was going to get
approved to be able to go into production then once it got into production they would send us
dailies which is basically what they've recorded the whole day what they've shot that whole day I
would also go through those dailies then they would send us the the drafts of of each of the
episodes and so now I'm going through and I am kind of like an editor but obviously not doing
the editing because there's a post-production team but now I'm going through and I'm mark talking at
you know at five minutes in you know here's a note at seven minutes in here's a note etc so that they
can kind of go back to make sure that it's going to fit what the executives are wanting it to fit
we would also this was a shocker for me we were also in charge of marketing and I'm
thinking I don't have a marketing degree you know that's not my job so I'm thinking the marketing
department is going to come in here and pitch to us what they think we should do with this
show and we're going to go go yes that's it or no that's not it that wasn't the case we
as the executives who were more intimate with the project would pitch to the marketing people
and then the marketing people would take it and execute it that was new for me so
that was a learning curve it was helpful though because now I know how to market my own business
same thing with branding casting wardrobe everything and executive literally does every
piece of the public puzzle or has their hand in every part of the process and so even though I I
got into it for the script part which again I did I had to read a lot of screenplays just to
you know when people submit their screenplays and do a little coverage to be able to say okay this
is some this is a writer that maybe we can work with later or this is an idea that maybe we can
work with them to actually develop or we're not going to do either the above it's not for us or
the writer is just not at the level that we want to work with now so I did a lot of that sometimes
I had to read just to read so that I can get to know what writers were out there what new writers
were coming so sure reading and giving notes was a part of the process but because I worked in
development and current a lot of it was some of that stuff that you would never even consider a
an executive has their hand in and so it was a big learning curve for me so what I enjoyed about it
is that day to day could be different day to day you don't know what you're going to be doing that
day because maybe you have a big pitch meeting coming in that day maybe you are going to end
up going to set that day the executives are the most senior people on a set because they're the
money people so even though the executive producer is at the top of their list and the directors at
the top of that list when the executive is there that's the person who's representing the larger
brand so sometimes I would fly to whatever state we were filming in to be able to be the executive
presence and one of the decisions I had to make one day which is a very very small decision but
it matters is we were on set shooting a pilot and one of our characters was a police woman but
she was a detective and so we went back and forth about how she should wear her hair because she's
still a woman so people were considered you know were concerned about is she still going to be sexy
but can we still take her seriously etc etc well what color should her hair be so now we're on set
and we can't decide if she should have earrings or what kind of earrings she should have and at
the end of the day there's not a decision that can be made without the studio I'm about the studio or
the network signing off on it and so because I was the executive there on set thank goodness I was
a woman as well that when it came down to that earring question I was able to make a decision
not only based on what I know the network wants but also what's going to make this woman look
like she's the type of woman to wear this type of earring with this type of outfit to go on the job
that she's about to go on so this the thing that we weren't considering at the time which is just
the fact that I'm a woman was the thing that made me the best the best person to be on set that day
because I was able to choose an earring so it's that kind of stuff that people don't really talk
about when it comes to being an executive that you don't realize the things that they're making
decisions about how many emails were there back and forth or calls about these earrings oh my
gosh I couldn't even tell you especially because I was in a different country in a different time
zone and I needed to be able to sign off on these earrings so I'm on set taking pictures of the
earrings I'm emailing the earrings I'm you know I'm calling about them him and eventually I got a
response because for executives this is something other also people don't really know they're on
call they don't get vacation time you know they can go on vacation but their phones have to stay
on if there are meetings happening they still have to be in their meetings because if people
are on set and questions need to be answered they have to be answered if your phone rings
at two in the morning because someone's on set in another time zone and it's 6 a.m their time and
they're trying to get some things done you have to answer your phone so I knew I would get a response
at some point but it's just that I'm only one of the other hundreds of emails that they're getting
now and now we're on set where time is money and we can't keep shooting until we choose earrings
because now you have to think of continuity well does she have earrings in the last scene and what
earrings did she have then blah blah blah so now we're all just sitting around waiting well I've
chosen the earrings that this is the one that we're going to go go with let me just make sure
that I get the you know the sign off on it you know but it's just it's crazy because it's like
their earrings but you know as women we understand an earring can their statements you know they say
a lot about about a woman and since it's a pilot and we're trying to sell her as someone that we
want you to root for and for you to like and care about her earrings mattered so what did we choose
what you know I believe we chose it was a stud I just don't remember if it was a pearl or if it
was you know something gold or silver or whatever it was but it was a stud because she wore a lot
of collared shirts and also we understand dangling earrings make a statement and she wasn't that kind
of a woman you know even in her regular dress she probably wasn't going to put on dangly earrings
but she definitely needed earrings so the question of no earrings studs or dangle it was like well
we know it's not a dangle but it's going to go have to be a stud because having no earrings just
took her femininity away which is really which is really weird but because she's a detective she's
dressed just like all of the men are she's got on her pantsuit she's got her collared
her college shirt and she has her hair I believe it was in like a short kind of messy bun at the
you know at the back and so now we're just getting a plain face she doesn't have a lot of makeup
and it's like well we got to have the one thing that makes her pop you know to make her her look
different from everybody else and so yeah I don't remember what color it was but we chose a stud.