Hi y’all. Welcome back to Top of the Line, IndieWire’s roundup of Craft stories. We’re not Emmy voters, but we have had A Time™ celebrating some Emmy-nominated TV this week.
We kicked it off on Monday with our camera survey and got responses from 18 cinematographers about how they created, iterated, or, in some cases, re-created the look of their shows. We’ve also looked at the production design of “Widow’s Bay,” how “Beef” Season 2 constructs a oner, how the casting of “Top Chef” finds fresh meat — I mean, contestants — every year for a very technically challenging reality series, what Roger Deakins’ camera preferences have to do with shooting lions in Kenya, and the visual richness that the “Pluribus” team has been able to find in Alburqueque, three TV shows and 20 years into shooting there.
And that’s just what I’ve been working on. Jim’s on vacation, but he’s got some great “Silo” coverage coming next week and an interview with Desi Lydic from “The Daily Show” that’s one of my favorite pieces on the site. Come for the origins of “Foxplains,” stay for Lydic’s insights into how a series like “The Daily Show” pivots now that absolutely everyone online is a member of the media, and we’re all generating Content™.
But something that’s stayed on my mind all week and that I’m going to be chewing over long after Emmy voting wraps is something Vince Gilligan brought up on Monday’s Toolkit podcast. The writing team is working on breaking Season 2 of the Apple TV sci-fi show, and Gilligan did acknowledge that there’s both pressure and hunger to deliver on the fix the series left poor Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) in at the end of Season 1.
In a self-effacing way, he quipped that he can’t wait for all of our grandkids to see what they’ve cooked up and joked — Don’t get mad at me, Pluribus Hive! It was a joke! — that Season 2 will start by doing a mulligan on the very last sequence of Carol alone in her house, but nix the A-Bomb the Others have gifted her. “We couldn’t figure that out, so we’re just never gonna mention it again,” Gilligan joked. “I don’t think anyone will question it.”
But Gilligan also talked about how the extended schedule has been able to allow the writers to craft a story that’s unfolding at the right pace, how the flexibility of streaming allows them to listen to the show and adjust to what it wants to be, and that more good TV will come if creators are able to craft shows that are the best versions of themselves. It was a defense of streaming I hadn’t heard articulated quite that way, so I’m just gonna let Gilligan close out the newsletter with it. See y’all next week, with more ideas that keep TV lovers awake at night.
Vince Gilligan: We didn’t really have a writers’ room on “The X-Files.” It was more of an episodic show, so that was, in a way, the best of both worlds. We’d work in our own offices on our own stuff, but then once or twice a week we’d all gather. We’d literally carry our three-by-five-foot cork boards across the parking lot from the writer’s office to Chris Carter’s office, which was scary sometimes because you’d have all these index cards stuck on with thumbtacks, and sometimes the wind would whip up just as you’re halfway across, and you’re like, “Oh, shit.”
That was kinda the best of both versions because you got to work by yourself plenty, but then you also got together and had that camaraderie of everybody trying to figure out how to make each episode the best it could be. That was my first taste of working with other writers. And then, you know, a full-on writers’ room, like on “Breaking Bad,” where you’re just in a room for months on end — it’s magical if you’re in the room with the right people. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve always been in the room with the right people.
We are beneficiaries of a much more forgiving medium now, and a forgiving process — even when I think in terms of how long we have to create these episodes versus the time we used to have on network. And for folks listening to this, wanting to do the job themselves, my best advice on this subject would be try not to think too much in terms of streaming versus cable versus network versus podcast versus whatever. I mean, I don’t know anything about podcasts, but I do know that a good story is a good story. And every story has its pace.
If you’re making a James Bond movie or a “Mission: Impossible” movie, the pace should be bopping along pretty good. If you’re writing something that’s more of a character study, that’s not necessarily about a secret agent, but someone wistful about their lost youth or whatever, then maybe things should go a little slower. But I would say look at each project on its own merits and its own terms, and try not to think too much about, “Oh, this is what they want in streaming.”
Before streaming ever existed, you know, 30 years ago, you’d talk to an agent, and they’d say, “You know what’s big this year? Vampire movies. You should write a vampire movie.” Like, no, you really shouldn’t. I mean, unless you really want to, and then by all means, write a vampire movie. But this thing about this is, people will tell you what they think they want, but it’s that old quote always attributed to Steve Jobs, and I’m probably misquoting it: it’s not the consumer’s job to know what it is they want. It’s our job to figure that out for them.
People want something new. All the “smart” men and women — and I’m putting finger quotes here around “smart” — whole legions of producers and executives and whatnot are saying, “This is what works, and this is what doesn’t.” But we’ve all heard the William Goldman truism: nobody knows anything. And they don’t.
People are afraid of the new, but they’re also attracted to it. And if you can come up with a story that, first and foremost, if you’re excited about it, if it floats your boat, if it keeps you awake at night — a character, a story — if you’re enthusiastic, the odds are someone else will be too. But if you’ve got something new, somebody somewhere is gonna dig it, and maybe it’s the right person who can put the money into it and get it made.