I’m writing this while sitting in the office of our Co-Executive Producer, Rick Qualliotine—the only person at The Wanda Sykes Show who has actually PAINTED HIS OFFICE… making this easiest the coolest office in the place (one wall is a bright warm orange-yellow). 

Rick started his career in theater, producing plays and stage shows, before moving on to television, where he has helped get shows like The Showbiz Show with David Spade, HGTV Summer Showdown, and now The Wanda Sykes Show, up on their feet.

So I’m asking Rick…

What are the biggest challenges when getting a new show up on its feet?

Here’s what Rick says, in his own words...

1)   NOT MENTALLY IMPLODING WHILE YOU WAIT FOR YOUR DEAL TO CLOSE.  Getting to the point where you actually start making something is a grueling, pressure-filled, and sometimes a financially difficult time.  Even if you’ve pitched and sold something, sometimes it will take a long while for there to be any money.  So frequently you’re waiting and waiting for a deal to close… and waiting for production to start… and waiting for any money to start coming.  So just getting to the point where you’re actually making something can be very stressful and difficult.

2)   You’d be amazed how frequently it turns out that what you’ve sold isn’t what the buyer wants.  So going back and forth trying to figure out what the show is, depending on the genre, can be very challenging.  What people frequently forget is that when they say “I sold my show, I sold my project,” that really means someone else owns it.  So when you start telling them what the show is and that’s not what they want it to be, there’s a very difficult back-and-forth… and what the show is and who’s gonna star in it and who’s gonna write it.  After you’ve sold it, it’s somebody else’s.  They need you to execute it, but it’s theirs.

3)   Staying on top of all the different pieces as it starts to move really fast.  It’s a huge elaborate, collaborative process.  I always go back to this David Mamet quote, which I’ll paraphrase: “Producing a play or directing a film is like running a marathon. Launching a television series is like running until your heart explodes.” 

When you make a TV show, you’re usually looking at making 13 or 22 episodes. Just doing the math, that’s either 7½ -11 or 13-22 hours of material that you have to imagine, write, perform, and edit.  It takes years to do that for a feature film, to produce that much material.  And we generally have about 30 weeks.  So that requires a huge team and lots of people writing simultaneously.  You must overlap your writing, your production, and post.  So as soon as those things start to overlap, you have to—as a showrunner—move in and out of those essential pieces.  That’s why, in television, directors take an episode or a couple episodes; then, the next week it moves on to the next director, whereas producers and writers stay on and generate all the material.  So if you’re a showrunner, you must have someone sitting in the [writers] room who you trust.  You have to have someone on the stage who you trust.  You have to have someone editing who you trust.  But you also have to be able to interface with all those people simultaneously, while dealing with the network, and all the usual challenges of managing people.

Thursday, November 12, 2009 6:22:18 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0]

I’ve been a huge Wanda fan for years, so I was thrilled about the chance to work with her.  For me, Wanda’s at her best when she’s serving as the voice of the everyman, breaking down large social and political ideas into hilariously simple, digestible, no-bullshit bites and articulating thoughts and questions everyone’s thinking but is afraid to ask. 

This is my first time working on a network late-night talk show.  (I produced a late-night talk show pilot for E! a couple years ago, but this is a whole different ballgame…)

The show mixes traditional talk show elements, like the opening monologue, with dashes of “The Daily Show,” “Real Time with Bill Maher,” and “Chelsea Lately.”  It’s got a bit of everything: one act makes fun of that week’s news and clips, another has Wanda and a panel of guests debating controversial social topics.

I work with the writers, putting together all the clip-based segments… finding the clips, developing sketches or jokes around them, etc.

So far it’s been a great time… a lot of hard work and late nights as we figure out how the show plays, what works/what doesn’t, which sketches fit with Wanda’s voice… but an incredible experience.  This writing staff has some of the most talented writers I’ve ever worked with… watching them brainstorm, pitch, and punch the jokes is an incredible education.

Anyway, over the next few weeks and months, I hope to be able to bring you first-hand reports from the world of production, as well as interviews and advice from the writers and staff.  And if you have questions, please email them in… and if I can’t answer them myself, I’m sure someone here can!

In the mean time, here’s one of my favorite Wanda stand-up bits…

Friday, November 06, 2009 4:55:10 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [1]