The final two days of shooting for season 2 of OVERRULED are upon us! If all goes according to plan, Thursday, April 23 wraps production of these 13 episodes. After that, it’s back to the normal grind of juggling many balls.
It’s been a great shoot so far, made even more exciting by having caught some promos for the series on Family Channel. We’re told that season 1 will air either in the summer or the fall.
So…what have I learned from the experience this time around? Firstly, I think that I’ve improved my 1/2 hour comedy writing. I used to take more time setting up a joke, now I fish for the joke in almost every line. I’m not sure this is the right pace for features, but for 21 minutes and 5 seconds of tween television, it’s what the genre demands.
Secondly, I’ve learned what the big hole in my skillset is. I’m awful at the politics of this business. Not the politics of getting a show made, but the politics of knowing what I want and not making people feel off-put because of it.
I grew up in this business thinking that people like clarity and decisiveness. You don’t want a director, executive producer, or showrunner who dithers. However in the hands of some people, clarity and decisiveness come off as strident. I may be one of those people. My enormous certainty (not to mention ego) is an acquired taste.
But what can I do? Without falling victim to delusions of grandeur, I can look back on my career and empirically say that the greatest successes I’ve had have been when I’ve followed my own lead.
I’m reminded of that scene in BROADCAST NEWS (written by James L. Brooks) between Holly Hunter as the news producer and her boss. Holly’s character, JANE, is relentlessly pushing her vision for how a time-critical news segment should be produced. Her boss, PAUL, disagrees with her but SHE WON’T LET IT GO. Finally, he looks at her and says, sarcastically “It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you’re the smartest person in the room.” Jane looks at him, ready to cry, and says from the bottom of her heart and totally in earnest the following:
“No. It’s awful.”
— Jeffrey Alan Schechter
