Let It Breathe Then Cut It's Head Off

My early work at Disney TV Animation has been on my mind lately because people insist on putting it there.  The Darkwing Duck comic book has been a big success for BOOM! Studios and they're hoping for another winner with Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers.  See previous post.  I've helped them out with some public appearances, interviews, story discussions and I'll even be writing an eight page story for the Darkwing Duck Annual due out in early spring.

It's great talking to fans of those shows and especially the ones now sharing it with their children.  I consider Darkwing to be one of my career highlights.

And it should have been better.

The show was good and I had a great crew and a staff of great writers.  It's just that I was VERY production oriented (although my various production managers might not have thought so).  My shows generally run well because I pay attention to the production calendar.  I consider it a mark of a professional to not make the lives of others hell just so he can make things just right.  It's always a balancing act.

You try to do the best job you can in the time allowed.  Truth be told, most show creators will look at a episode after it's been on the air and still want to call changes.  There comes a time when you have to send it out and move onto the next one.  

But there's a huge grey area there.  How late in the schedule can you make a difference?  Karl Guers was the producer of Disney TV's Winnie the Pooh.  I credit his attention to detail and willingness to go over budget with the huge success of that show.   He and story editor, Mark Zaslove, held themselves to an incredibly high standard.   

The then president of TV Animation said to me, "It's a good thing it was such a success or I'd probably have to fire them."  I can see that.   I can also see that it was that show that kick started Winnie the Pooh into the merchandising juggernaut that even toppled Mickey (or at least threatened to).

There were gags in Darkwing Duck that fell flat because they weren't staged or timed as well as they could have been.  His arms tended to stretch too much.  I'd write a gag where he'd reach offscreen to bring in a mallet or whatnot but the artist used too wide a field.  Instead of casual arm move, he ended up looking like Plastic Man because the edge of the frame was too far away.  But I let it go because there's nothing inherently wrong with that in a cartoon, it just wasn't to my taste.

Ginny McSwain did a brilliant job of casting the series but every so often and actor would make choices that took him away from what I wanted.  We didn't get to audition actors for every episode.  That only happens with the main cast at the beginning of the show not in individual episodes.   With an eye on the clock, I'd think, "It's not what I wanted but it still works."  

If I was smart enough to recognize WHY the actor wasn't working for me I could direct Ginny to direct the actor in a different direction.  Michael Bell has a lot of fans for his portrayal of Quackerjack, the clown villain in the Darkwing series.  But I lost interest.  I realized that I had wanted a darker edge to him, a Joker to Darkwing's Batman.  Maybe I should have rerecorded the part.   But would it have resulted in a better character or just a different one.  Luckily one of my editors, Duane Capezzi knew exactly what to do with the character.

Woulda, shoulda.   It can't haunt you forever.  I'm currently involved in two different shows where major work is done to improve the product, long after it was considered "final."

The first is BOB'S BURGERS. I've only boarded on the show.  In fact, my end date is coming in a week or so.   There are several scenes in this promo that I storyboarded and the day it went up, I was redrawing them with new gags and new dialogue.

The writers write.   The actors improvise which inspires the writer's to rewrite and build on what was done.  The network gives notes which calls for rewrites.   Those rewrites inspire the actors again.  Keep in mind that the crew starts boarding on the original version of the script.  It's pretty crazy but not atypical for prime time animated shows.

Often we look at the original script and know it's long.  That means we dive into it knowing that a bunch of what we're working on isn't going to make it on the air.  But they have us do it because visuals make a difference.  Suddenly, when you're watching the animatic, a sequence with a talking cow is much funnier or unexpectedly touching.  It becomes a set piece to be protected.  Is this process unprofessional?  Not if it's planned into the production.  Perhaps the most valued professional is the one who brings the most entertainment to the screen.

The staff loves the show and wishes it well even as we disperse to the four winds in search of employment at other studios.  Here's to a second season!

The second show that all but threw out the baby with the bathwater is not actually a show.  It's a pilot.  My pilot for Cartoon Network.  I had a meeting on the second draft of my script.  Instead of giving specific notes, the development execs talked about what they'd like to see in the show.  It was a very creative meeting.  I agreed with the ideas of how far to push the humor.... and I was pretty much convinced my show was headed for the crapper.

Why?  They had read two drafts.  Ideally, I want to hear, "I love what you did here!"  When the talk turns general it means the show isn't living up to the promise that they originally saw in it.  I had to surprise them again.  Not just parrot the material back to them but create new set pieces that would showcase my characters.

So toward the end of the meeting, I said I'd need to make major changes in the script, outline type changes.  They weren't necessarily asking for that.  They thought the story beats were still solid.  But I knew I needed to take serious action.

I rewrote a good two thirds of the script without any additional money because it was MY show.  I show I wanted to SELL.  It wasn't easy for two reasons:  I knew it was much too long which made me second guess myself and I had to struggle to make the new stuff veer back into the existing script to save the stuff I thought was working great.   That slows you down.   I ended up turning the script in late and long but I didn't worry about it.

I had to let the thing breathe so I could show them my new version of the characters and the different type of gag situations I wanted to inject into the show.  Did it work?

Don't know, my meeting is tomorrow.  Hopefully there'll be a little, "love what you did here" and some serious talk about what to cut and what to keep.  But I did trade emails with one of the execs who felt I had created some genuine laugh out loud moments.   He also pointed out it was waaaay long.

But that's okay.  I've never been afraid of cutting my own stuff.  And if they ask for another episode, it will be filled with fresher, funnier material than I ever imagined when I first pitched the show.  The rewrite got me excited about the show all over again.  I'm hoping it did the same for them.

Whew.  Been awhile since I've posted.  Glad I could come back with a long one.

--Tad

 

 

Comments

[Arun]

Hi Tad, I really like how much you love and respect your work, best of luck with the meeting!