TheProcess.Ink

Tom Benedek talks the creative process with filmmakers, writers, showrunners, other cultivators of truth and beauty. 

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Peter Tolan (Rescue Me, Outsiders, The Jim Gaffigan Show, Analyze This) talks TV pilots and his creative journey.

• creating character conflicts
• balancing comedy and drama
• The central idea, the nugget, the central question of what a show is and writing to it
• Building character conflicts, plot in a TV pilot
• Mapping out the season/seasons of a series
• Episode balance of comedy and drama on Rescue me
• Writers room
• Using cards
• Cards wall
• Story checkpoints
• Sequences
• George Clooney
• Sony Television
• Pitching
• Rewriting
• Writing the rough draft
• Writing just comedy/jokes vs. story/plot – what happens next?
• The Larry Sanders Show
• UMass theatre days
• New York theatre exploits
• Murphy Brown
• Gaffigan
• Playwriting to TV writing
• Breaking into the business today – Youtube, shooting something

"You slowly put everything in place so you can get to that last moment. We knew what the last image of the first season of Rescue Me was so we could always write to it. We slowly could make our way towards that."

"Rescue Me was dealing with death all the time. As dark as it went with drama, it had to go just as light with the comedy. You had to balance the two out."

“If you're young and starting out,  you can shoot on your phone. Write something and make it. Put it on YouTube  and people will see it.”

“You write somebody who's a dick - who has outrageous behavior, but then how do you have an audience empathize with that character, care about that character? So an essential character is not the dick, it's the other guy."

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Janet Leahy (Mad Men, Gilmore Girls, Boston Legal, Roseanne, The Cosby Show) talks her creative journey and work experiences.

• The Mad Men writers room
• Women in TV writing
• Women breaking into TV
• Writers Assistants
• Developing characters
• Production Secretaries
• The writers room
• Creating episode stories
• Worst fears-using character fears to create compelling story conflict
• Transitioning from half-hour comedy writing to one-hour drama
• Family of characters
• Story Conflict
• pitching TV shows,
• brainstorming
• playwriting
• road trips for writing

"I pitch why it's important, the characters,  the tone."

"What's the worst thing? What are you afraid of? What relationships in your life are you trying to resolve? Why can't you resolve them?"

“It has to entertain the audience, move them, nourish them emotionally.”

“Family of characters… people bringing this family, these characters into their home. Because of the technology, they’re carrying them in their pocket now, too.”

"Whhat are their hopes and dreams? What are they not getting? What's their struggle? What are hoping to gain in their journey? Let's say their journey is life or their journey is a job or what have you. As long as you know all that, you can start playing with that. Then, what I found is once you have your characters,

"People start bringing in stories from their own lives to the writers' room and translate them through the show's characters."

"I try to clear my brain and then the ideas come. I let go of any notion that I'm going to control this thing and then the ideas come."

“This kind of complete camaraderie and yet complete competition in the room for jokes.”

“You’ll be really funny and talented on one show and the next show you work on, that showrunner decides whether you’re funny or not.”

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