As a writer and music enthusiast, I am fascinated by the creative process and I am enchanted by the notion of success. Based on my own attempts to grab at the elusive ring, I came up with this equation to keep me focused:
creative success = talent + perseverance + luck
Granted, my math teacher in high school was also the gym teacher but even I know that you have to test an equation to see if it works. There are plenty of books that cover this subject (Magic Hours and Imagine come to mind) but this being Los Angeles, I thought I would turn to some of my famous friends to analyze my theory. Okay, truth is I only have one famous friend and his name is Danny Zuker. You may not have heard of him directly but if you watch ABC's Modern Family, then you have experienced his talent firsthand. Danny is an award-winning writer and co-executive producer for the wildly successful show.
I recently sat down with Danny to ask him a few questions:
LM: What do you do for Modern Family in your role as co-executive producer and writer?
DZ: Job one as a producer on a television show is writing. Writers control television in the way directors control movies. So first and foremost, we are generating stories and scripts. There are twenty-four episodes a year on our show and every episode has three storylines. If I were better at math I could tell you how many stories that would be a year. I've been a part of 71 episodes now. The other part of the job is shepherding your episode through casting, editing, and shooting - you are seeing it through from beginning to end. All the while you are helping other people rewrite and break their episodes.
LM: Do you guys plan out the whole season ahead of time?
DZ: I wish we could say we do that. Before we start shooting we try to have twelve episodes at least conceived of in various forms. We have a writers' room that is wall-to-wall whiteboards and in marker we will put up the beats - this could happen and then this and then this - and we'll also put them on index cards. Then as the stories start to coalesce, one of us will either take a shining to a particular episode and we'll claim it as our own or it will be assigned to us. It would be poor form to refuse an episode and I've had great ones come to me that I was not that excited about initially. That person will then take those notes from the boards and from the writers' assistant and put them together in an outline.
LM: How far in advance does the writing happen before shooting?
DZ: Ideally it can happen months ahead because we are in preproduction in those first twelve weeks. We will start writing in May but we don't start shooting until August. But it can also be as short as a week. By the time we get to the end of the season, it's a much faster schedule because the beast has caught up with us.
LM: Okay, so you gather the notes...
DZ: Yes, and then that person will go away for several days to write an outline. For me, and I'm not sure every writer would agree, but for me that is the most excruciating part of the process. I'll write a script any day over writing an outline.
LM: Really? Why?
DZ: In a script you can do those things where you try the characters on and you write dialogue - I love writing dialogue and jokes. But the outline is math, it's heavy lifting. Plotting out the story is the hardest thing we do.
LM: And you have to do it no matter what.
DZ: Yep. We're doing it all the time. That outline will make its way back to the writers' room where the guys who created the show and all the other writers will weigh in with their notes and we'll make some changes. In a best-case scenario, we will cut or add a scene. In a worst-case scenario, we will throw out an entire story. That has definitely happened a number of times.
LM: And this is all before you've written the script?
DZ: Yes and then once those stories have been re-broken, the person will go off and write the first draft of the script. People will take as much time as they have to write it. Work is like gas; it fills the space you give it. If we have two weeks to write a script, we'll take two weeks. I've written them in two days. It just depends.
LM: Are you a procrastinator?
DZ: Definitely but the schedule is such that it's hard to procrastinate. Especially if you know that you only have a week. I've tried to make the whole ritual fun.
LM: Tell me about that.
DZ: After I have my outline, I will go to my office and I'll start to place the scenes, like a framework.
LM: You lay it out visually?
DZ: I'll pop the cards on a board in my office and take a picture of it. And then I'll write that into a script form with all the slug lines. Then I'll go check into a hotel for a couple of days and write in my bathrobe, with room service.
LM: Is that to get rid of distractions?
DZ: It's a combination of things. One, I have a family with three children and it's difficult to be home and write in the office. And two, I paid for a hotel room so now I have a financial outlay. It has to pay off. I don't want to be in a hotel room for two days and have nothing to show for it. I want to have a solid rough draft when I check out.
LM: When you're in the hotel room, are you reading the dialogue out loud to yourself?
DZ: Sometimes, yeah. When I'm doing dialogue my body language is acting out the script. I'll pace the room or I'll gesture like Gloria or Cam. I'll try those characters on. I know them so well now, we all do.
LM: How long is the script at this point?
DZ: We like the table read to be about thirty-four pages so I usually have to pare down my draft a bit and tighten it up before it goes back to the room.
LM: And when does the cast get it?
DZ: We will have a limited amount of time to do a rewrite for our table draft and then the cast will come in and read it and we'll make more changes. We'll say, "Oh boy, that didn't work" or "Wow, Claire didn't have enough jokes there." It's cutting and punching.
LM: From the time you are in your hotel room to the time you are shooting your episode, how much time has passed?
DZ: It depends. It can be a month or it can be days. The last episode I wrote we broke it in three days, I wrote it in three days, we tabled it in a day and a half, and then we rewrote it in two days. It was a quick turn around and now it's one of my favorite episodes.
LM: You're talking about "Leap Day"?
DZ: Yes.
LM: One of my favorite lines in that episode is when Luke says "You're all monsterating!" [a reference to Claire and her two daughters all being on the same "cycle."] How did that come about?
DZ: I wish I could take credit for that. Chris Lloyd [one of the creators of the show] actually came up with that line. And it was amazing. Sometimes a joke is so out there and yet so obvious at the same time. It's like, wait, I can't possibly be the one who thought of that. Isn't that out there in the lexicon somewhere?
LM: Then did you go back and write the lead-ins for that joke?
DZ: No, that's the amazing part. The lead-ins were already there. I had teed it up.
LM: So that's the nuts and bolts of what you do now. It's obvious to me that you have the creativity piece nailed down. When did you know you wanted to work in comedy?
DZ: I never wanted to do anything other than comedy. I knew that from the time I was five years old. My grandfather was a bartender in the Catskills and he knew all the old comedians. I remember meeting one of them, Van Harris, Uncle Van, and I found out that people were paying him to be funny. That was a revelation. I did stand up throughout high school and college but I was terrible. I was a lazy writer and I didn't have anything to talk about, I was too young. I was at that typical first stage where you imitate those comedians you most admire.
LM: Whom were you imitating?
DZ: I was a fan of observational comedy so I was probably doing a really bad Jerry Seinfeld. And I love Steve Martin so I was doing silly things like that. But it wasn't me, I didn't know who I was then. It's easy to get a cheap laugh and you can mistake that for being good.
LM: How did you transition into television?
DZ: I had some friends who were writers and I ended up getting a job as a PA [Production Assistant] for Howard Stern in New York. I think this speaks to the luck thing: there is luck without a doubt but you have to buy as many lottery tickets as possible. That means putting yourself in the right spot for things to happen. I ended up working on some pilots for Howard for FOX that never aired but through that I met some people who were doing a show out in Los Angeles. It was sort of a precursor to what the Daily Show ultimately became. It was called the Wilton North Report and it was terrible even though it had great writers like Greg Daniels, Conan O'Brien, Nell Scovell, and Billy Kimball. So people got to know me as funny on that show and that led to a PA job on the Arsenio Hall Show. After thirteen weeks on the air, Arsenio fired half the writers and in the time it took him to hire new ones, I just wrote every night. And he started using my jokes in his monologue and then he hired me as a writer. That was my real "in" to The Writers Guild and all of that.
LM: That's a combination of luck and perseverance.
DZ: Yes but the one thing you do have control over, and I tell writers this all the time, is your output. You can always write, you can always make yourself better so that if you do get called up to the big leagues, you are ready to hit the ball out of the park. The crazy thing about ageism in television and movies is - and look, people do lose their edge - if you stay hard working and driven, you have so much more to write about. You are so much smarter. I couldn't have written Modern Family ten years ago.
LM: Some people think the luck piece is going to carry them through without having to do the hard work.
DZ: They do. Creative people aren't disciplined. That doesn't go hand in hand.
LM: Do you feel disciplined now?
DZ: No. I struggle with that all the time. All you have to do is see me with my shirt off to know that I struggle with discipline.
LM: Social media has obviously played a big role in you becoming more...
DZ: Twitter-famous?
LM: Yes and it has allowed you to develop a public persona instead of remaining an obscure television writer. Do you think social media is helping or hurting?
DZ: Helping. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. It is the most democratizing force. I have met young people who are brilliant joke writers who might have slipped through the cracks, or taken ten more years to get noticed, if not for Twitter. I wish it had been around when I was coming up. It has made me a stronger joke writer. And it's a great way for writers who are so inclined to put themselves out there. I worked a long time to get a hit show as big as Modern Family and I'm shameless about self promoting because who knows how many years I have left.
LM: And who knows what's going to happen with television, everything is changing.
DZ: Exactly. It's all changing. Although I don't buy that broadcast television is going to go away. It's too big worldwide. It will find its new level. The one thing human beings are good at is figuring out how to make money. I know that we'll find a way to make fortunes off the Internet and television.
LM: Do you listen to music when you write?
DZ: No, it's too distracting. Sometimes I will put CNN on in the background to remind myself that the world is out there. I find writing to be incredibly lonely.
LM: Do you have a favorite character or family to write for on Modern Family?
DZ: I think the really amazing thing about the show is that I actually don't have a favorite character to write for. There really is something interesting and challenging about writing all of them. I think given who I am, characters like Phil and Cameron may come the most easily to me, but this year I've really enjoyed writing for Mitchell. It's always changing.
LM: Is there a particular episode - whether you wrote it or not - that you think is an important one? Not necessarily because it was the funniest but because it was a turning point for the show?
DZ: For me it was the first episode I wrote and I imagine other writers would say the same thing. Steve and Chris had created such a complete pilot that just being able to prove that we could not only write in that world but expand it was by far the most rewarding experience.
LM: I love this quote from the designer Charles Eames: "To be realistic one must always admire the influence of those who have gone before." Who has influenced you in your career and how?
DZ: God, my influences are myriad. I've been a comedy sponge from the moment I knew there was a thing called comedy. I will say growing up I had every Monty Python album memorized, which I know women find incredibly sexy. The same goes for Steve Martin. He was a revelation. Loved SCTV. When I first saw Woody Allen's "Love and Death" I was thunderstruck. The same thing goes for "Airplane!" And I continue to be influenced and more importantly entertained by Louis CK, Archer, Community, 30 Rock, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
A heartfelt thank you to Danny for talking with me and a big congratulations for all of his hard-earned success. You can listen to him in person on an episode of the Nerdist Writer's Panel here and don't forget to follow him on Twitter or you might just miss out on his next big Twitter war.
And now, onto the music. For those of you who are new to Blogschu: I try to post (each and every Monday) five songs that tickle my fancy that week. And I usually write something about music or whatever floats my creative boat. All of this under the banner of Jeff Bundschu and the Gundlach Bundschu winery. Random, right?
Be sure to check out these two upcoming music events at Gundlach Bundschu:
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Listen to the Gun Bun Music Monday 2012 Playlist on Spotify or Everyone's Mixtape.
Watch videos of the track here.
Listen to the 2011 Music Monday Playlist here.
Here are this week's five tunes:
"Birds" - We Are Serenades
A chance run-in between two Swedish musicians led to the creation of We Are Serenades. "Birds" is the lead single from their recently released debut album, Criminal Heaven.
"Love Interruption" - Jack White
Tickets for Jack White's upcoming shows here in Los Angeles sold out almost instantly. He is taking to the road following the release of his first solo album, Blunderbuss. The NY Times Magazine recently did a very interesting piece about him.
"Wish You Were Here" - Lia Ices
I fell in love with Lia Ices' voice after she debuted at CMJ in 2010. This cover originally appeared on MOJO Magazine's vinyl tribute to Pink Floyd and it does not disappoint.
"Away Frm U" - Oberhofer
I caught Oberhofer on the radio during SXSW when he performed as part of the KCRW SXSW Showcases and I had two thoughts when I heard him: wow, he's young (he's 21) and damn, he's talented.
"Stubborn Love" - The Lumineers
This Colorado band sounds a lot like one of my favorites from last year, The Head and the Heart. And that's a very good thing indeed. Their self-titled, debut album is fantastic.
Bonus: "Levon" - Elton John
Mad respect and R.I.P. to legendary singer and drummer Levon Helm who died this past week at the age of 71.
Cheers, Lisa
@lmecham
