A Quote by Shawn Ryan
There are story-room sessions where you think about the big picture, like a novel, but once you have certain things in place, you have to treat each episode like an hour of TV, and think that maybe this will be the only episode that anyone will ever watch. You want to have some sort of beginning, middle, and end to the episode, even if you have storylines that are carrying over. You still want it to feel like a cohesive hour of entertainment. And you can't think about both at the same time.
Related Quotes
We do want the freedom to move scenes from episode to episode to episode. And we do want the freedom to move writing from episode to episode to episode, because as it starts to come in and as you start to look at it as a five-hour movie just like you would in a two-hour movie, move a scene from the first 30 minutes to maybe 50 minutes in. In a streaming series, you would now be in a different episode. It's so complicated, and we're so still using the rules that were built for episodic television that we're really trying to figure it out.
You can watch an episode of Friends or an episode of Law & Order and just drop in, but you're not going to in the middle of Season 4, Episode 5 of Lost. It's like picking up a Harry Potter book and flipping to a chapter. You have to read it from beginning to end.
Keep a diary, but don't just list all the things you did during the day. Pick one incident and write it up as a brief vignette. Give it color, include quotes and dialogue, shape it like a story with a beginning, middle and end—as if it were a short story or an episode in a novel. It's great practice. Do this while figuring out what you want to write a book about. The book may even emerge from within this running diary.
I think our goal and intention is to make sure that, when you watch each episode, you don't have to make that choice, but also that you can have stand-alone episodes, where a story can have a beginning, middle and end.
I think, with any kind of Netflix show, it's quite nice at the end of - just even watching the end of Episode 1, you have that kind of moment to yourself where you're like, 'Okay, I need to see the next episode here.'
Each scenario in 'Battleborn' is kind of like a TV episode, you can play them in any order, and each one has a beginning, middle, and end. And they are super replayable.
Pretty much every show that comes on, I'll try to watch at least one episode of it. For me, there are three different levels. I watch the first episode, and if I love it, I'm lockin' it in for the rest of the season. If I'm not too sure about it, I will maybe tune in the next week. It it's just terrible, then I'm done.
The Netflix brand for TV shows is really all about binge viewing. The ability to get hooked and watch episode after episode.
I am wary of repeating myself too much. In this age of Netflix, as a Netflix show, if you want to go back and watch a season 1 episode, you can do that easily. I'm not interested in repeating the same story beats over and over and over again. But part of the truth of BoJack story is about how much he repeats himself and these patterns that are difficult to get out of. I'm trying not to be evasive about that. I'm not using that as an excuse. I think that's convenient to fall back on as a TV writer: "Oh, it's a show about stagnation."
I would definitely say the last episode is as epic as probably any episode that 'Once Upon a Time' has ever done. I mean, it's massive; it's huge. It's like taking the best of all seasons and jamming it into one - literally.
I kept saying I want to do an episode that's set in the past, how do we do a period episode of Black Mirror? And simultaneously there was another idea we were thinking about and the two things sort of gelled and became San Junipero.
Endings are the hardest part. I find there's a great relief that at the end of every episode, every hour of TV you produce, while you want a proper and satisfying ending, it doesn't have to end The Story, in capital letters.
I wrote Steve Carell's last episode. I think it was a really good episode, but there's always a tension between what's good for the series and what's good for an episode, because the more closure you put on an episode, the more significant feeling it is.
The audience has a level of control, when you watch 'Invisible,' that nothing in 2D can give you. The overall climax of the series will work no matter how you get there, and the climax of each episode will work no matter how you get there, but no two viewings of an episode will ever be the same.
I think where it's going is toward what the music industry is like, where channels will be considered more like labels that carry the type of TV show that you like, and then you'll consume them however you can. For example, I don't really watch Showtime, but I bought 'Homeland,' and I've been watching every episode on my iPad.
I think a good story, well told is a good story, well told, whether you're watching the episodes all in a row or not. However, it might be fun to take a closer look at how the previous episode ends and how that end relates to the beginning of the next episode.
Related Authors
Ayn Rand Quotes
Russian
Writer
C. S. Lewis Quotes
British
Writer
Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes
French
Writer
Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes
English
Writer
H. L. Mencken Quotes
American
Writer
Haruki Murakami Quotes
Japanese
Writer
Kurt Vonnegut Quotes
American
Writer
Leo Tolstoy Quotes
Russian
Writer
Mark Twain Quotes
American
Writer
Mason Cooley Quotes
American
Writer
Ray Bradbury Quotes
American
Writer
Samuel Johnson Quotes
English
Writer
Seth Godin Quotes
American
Writer
Sherrilyn Kenyon Quotes
American
Writer
Suzanne Collins Quotes
American
Writer