![]() ![]() But sometimes, that exact same mindset is what's leading this person to act with empathy and care. This is the mindset that is informing all of these decisions and, a lot of the time, it results in some things that are less than favorable. It's also an episode where we get to give some depth to Ava, and I really liked getting to do that because it's a really tricky dance to give that character depth in a way that still feels like she can be as terrible as she is.Įven these cooky characters like Tariq, Ava, and Maurice have a line of logic that's happening underneath that is informing all of the sort of wild things they say and really bring that to the surface. But for now, "Fundraiser" is my favorite, just because I think there are so many moments in it where the characters are like the purest distillations of themselves. I mean, I just have to be honest: "Fundraiser." Something might come out this season where I'm like, you know what, that's my new favorite. What has been your favorite episode so far and why? So, if we're ever waffling on something, we'll just have to be like, "Alright, when Quinta gets a break on set, tell her we need her to settle it." And I think that's a healthy part of producing the product that people seem to enjoy. It's part of what's fun about the job - seeing people so invested in telling the stories in a way that feels good to all of us. So I'm just gonna kick back and chill until that." There's a lot of playful arguing and just people being passionate. Sometimes you just have to know when to sort of sit back and be like, "Alright, I've said my piece and in about two-and-a-half hours everyone's gonna realize I was right. So it's a lot about knowing, "Okay, is this an ego thing? Am I holding on to this because it's my idea, or am I holding on to this because I think it's the best idea?" Not in like a toxic way, but people have ideas that they believe in, because we're all trying to make the show the best that we can. A writers room is somewhere where I think you have to be comfortable with conflict. Has there ever been a disagreement on how a particular scene should play out or how a character should respond in a certain situation? And how do you all typically work through that? Then the writer will go off with the outline and write the episode that they've been assigned. Plenty of times they're like that, "I don't want that joke !" But it gives everyone the opportunity to have moments throughout other people's episodes. ![]() We just go around the room - like, you get scene one, you get scene two, you get scene three - and that creates just so much texture in our episodes, because every writer has the opportunity to get solid jokes into the outline that the person who's writing the script can then take or leave them. I haven't been in other rooms where we've done it like this, and it is by far my favorite outline process. The way we do the outline, I think, is somewhat unique. Then we board it and we'll go through the board probably like three times, just to make sure that the logic works, that scenes are where they can be, because it's also a matter of, "Is this taking place over one day? Is it taking place over several weeks?" and having stories that can flow on that same timeline together. After we break out the big ideas, we do this thing called boarding, which is sort of the stereotypical thing people have seen on TV of the note cards on the wall, with the little ideas, and putting everything into the correct structure. In one episode, we were really focused on Ava, so let's put her in more of a backseat role in this episode.just doing the math in that way. We'll say, "You know, it seems like people are sort of learning similar lessons, but very different scenarios." Or sometimes it's just a matter of, like, real estate - we're seeing so much of these two characters, we need to see some of the other cast. Or what is the lesson that the character is learning? We use that to then pair them together. Is it enough for it to be in a story so that it's the central focus of the episode? Or does it feel more like a B-story that we can sprinkle in? So we will have a list of A-stories and B-stories, and once we dig into them a little bit, we try to see what theme is developing. To build an episode, we start with a basic idea, like it could be as simple as what if Barbara and Melissa have an annual Christmas party? Or coming from the perspective of Jacob, what if he really doesn't like Christmas? It can start from a nugget as small as that, and what we do is sort of figure out how much meat that particular idea has. You all have done a great job with ensuring the characters don't feel one-dimensional! Can you walk me through what it takes to build an episode? Basically a regular day in the writers room.
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