The hiring of a new assistant triggers a power struggle between an aging TV show creator and her former protégée. Rising-star showrunner Stacey McCreedy has one goal: to leave behind her nerd-girl origins and become a power player — like Ann Dalloni, her former mentor and current producing partner. Ann, meanwhile, is feeling her age and losing her mind. But she’ll be damned if she cedes control of their hit primetime TV show to Stacey. After Ann hires Jenna, a young actress hoping to restart her stalled career, as an assistant, the relationship between Ann and Stacey deteriorates into a blood feud. Soon, Jenna must choose whom to support and whom to betray to achieve her own ends. And Stacey will find out if she possesses the killer instinct needed to stay on top.
The hiring of a new assistant triggers a power struggle between an aging TV show creator and her protégée-turned-partner in a suspenseful, relatable, wickedly entertaining novel about powerful, ambitious women competing for the top job.
If you’ve ever dreamed of being in charge of your own network, cable, or web series, then this is the book for you. The TV Showrunner’s Roadmap provides you with the tools for creating, writing, and managing your own hit show. Combining his 20+ years as a working screenwriter and UCLA professor, Neil Landau expertly guides you through 21 essential insights to the creation of a successful show, and takes you behind the scenes with exclusive and enlightening interviews with showrunners from some of TV’s most lauded series, including: Breaking Bad Homeland Scandal Modern Family The Walking Dead Once Upon a Time Lost House, M.D. Friday Night Lights The Good Wife From conception to final rewrite, The TV Showrunner’s Roadmap is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to create a series that won’t run out of steam after the first few episodes. This groundbreaking guide features a companion website with additional interviews and bonus materials. www.focalpress.com/cw/landau So grab your laptop, dig out that stalled spec script, and buckle up. Welcome to the fast lane.
Cy Chermak will charm readers with his humor as he takes us into the world of television show business? dealing with writers, directors, actors and the networks. His producing credits include the iconic TV series CHiPs, Ironside, The Virginian, The Bold Ones, Barbary Coast, and Kolchak: The Night Stalker, among others. During his 30-year career in television, Cy also worked as a freelance writer (Bonanza, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and dozens of others), a Story Editor (Rescue 8 and The Virginian), and has been nominated for three primetime Emmys, the Writers Guild of America Award, and the Humanitas Prize. Mr. Chermak is also the proud recipient of the NAACP's Image Award. In this memoir, Cy reveals his real-life experiences, lessons learned, regrets, and many delights.
Examines the ins and outs of the television industry, providing tips for success, an in-depth glossary of industry jargon, and an overview of the current state of the industry.
Move over, movies: the freshest storytelling today is on television, where the multi-episodic format is used for rich character development and innovative story arcs. Directors Tell the Story, Second Edition offers rare insight and advice straight from two A-list television directors whose credits include NCIS, NCIS New Orleans, Nashville, Criminal Minds and many more. Here, in one volume, learn everything you need to know to become an excellent director, not merely a good one. Covering everything through prep, shoot, and post, the authors offer practical instruction on how to craft a creative vision, translate a script into a visual story, establish and maintain the look and feel of a television show or film, lead the cast and crew, keep a complex operation running on time and on budget, and effectively oversee editing and post-production. Directors Tell the Story provides behind-the-scenes access to the secrets of successful directors, as well as exercises that use original scripted material. This newly updated edition features: All-new "From the Experts" sections with insider info known only to working professionals Profiles of top film and TV luminaries with advice and tips Additional „How I Got My First Job" stories from directors currently in the trenches Useful instruction to help you put directing techniques into practice A companion website featuring directing tutorials and video interviews with the authors Bethany Rooney has directed over two hundred episodes of prime-time network shows, including NCIS, The Originals, Nashville, NCIS New Orleans, and Criminal Minds. She teaches the Warner Brothers Directing Workshop and serves on numerous committees at the Directors Guild of America. Mary Lou Belli is a two-time Emmy Award winning producer, writer, and director as well as the author of two books. She directed NCIS New Orleans, Monk, Hart of Dixie, The Game, Girlfriends, and The Wizards of Waverly Place. She teaches directing at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.
Collected from a truly expansive exploration of television’s most creative minds, Showrunners is an insider’s guide to creating and maintaining a hit show in today’s golden age of television. The official companion to the documentary Showrunners, this highly informative book features exclusive interviews with such acclaimed and popular showrunners as Joss Whedon, Damon Lindelof, Ronald D.Moore, Terence Winter, Bill Prady, Shawn Ryan, David Shore, and Jane Espenson.
Gain a thorough understanding of the nuanced and multidimensional role producers play in television and emerging media today to harness the creative, technical, interpersonal, and financial skills essential for success in this vibrant and challenging field. Producing for TV and New Media, Fourth edition is your guide to avoiding the obstacles and pitfalls commonly encountered by new and aspiring producers. This fourth edition has been updated to include: "Focus on Emerging Media" sections that highlight emerging media, web video, mobile format media and streaming media Sample production forms and contracts Review questions accompanying each interview and chapter Interviews with industry professionals that offer practical insight into cutting-edge developments in television and emerging media production Fresh analysis of emerging media technologies and streaming media markets Written especially for new and aspiring producers with an insight that simply cannot be found in any other book, this new edition of a text used by professors and professionals alike is an indispensable resource for anyone looking to find success as a television or emerging media producer.
Seeing It on Television: Televisuality in the Contemporary US 'High-end' Series investigates new categories of high-end drama and explores the appeal of programmes from Netflix, Sky Atlantic/HBO, National Geographic, FX and Cinemax. An investigation of contemporary US Televisuality provides insight into the appeal of upscale programming beyond facts about its budget, high production values and/or feature cinematography. Rather, this book focuses on how the construction of meaning often relies on cultural discourse, production histories, as well as on tone, texture or performance, which establishes the locus of engagement and value within the series. Max Sexton and Dominic Lees discuss how complex production histories lie behind the rise of the US high-end series, a form that reflects industrial changes and the renegotiation of formal strategies. They reveal how the involvement of many different people in the production process, based on new relationships of creative authority, complicates our understanding of 'original content'. This affects the construction of stylistics and the viewing strategies required by different shows. The cultural, as well as industrial, strategies of recent television drama are explored in The Young Pope, The Knick, Stranger Things, Mars, Fargo, The Leftovers, Boardwalk Empire, and Vinyl.
