With Upfront Week in full swing (see Deadline's extensive coverage here), what better time to peel back the layers on the creative minds behind some of your favorite series of the past few years? The 2012 documentary Showrunners does just that, featuring interviews with the likes of Damon Lindelof (LOST), Jeff Pinkner & J.H. Wyman (Fringe), David Eick (Battlestar Galactica), Kurt Sutter (Sons of Anarchy) and more, who spill on everything from daily life as a showrunner on a hit show to what happens when you sign away creative control. TV lovers, you're going to want to watch this trailer.
The folks included in the three-minute trailer for Showrunners:
Damon Lindelof (LOST)
David Shore (House)
Michael Wright, head of programming for TNT
Steven S. DeKnight (Spartacus: Sand and Blood)
Mike Royce and Ray Romano (Men of a Certain Age)
Anthony LaPaglia
David Eick (Battlestar Galactica)
Jeff Pinkner & J.H. Wyman (Fringe)
Matthew Carnahan (Dirt)
Ben Silverman (Ugly Betty, The Tudors)
Mark Schwan (One Tree Hill)
Kurt Sutter (Sons of Anarchy)
In addition to taking you inside the writers room on a number of shows (Ray Romano drinks ginger ale!), Showrunners promises plenty of real talk from creative who've been burned before. Like Matthew Carnahan, whose statements on the short-lived show Dirt reveal the regretful side of the business: "My initial original vision for the show was compromised from the time that I said, 'OK, I'll do it. I'll add a female protagonist.' I've never seen the second season of Dirt, nor do I want to."
Or Sons of Anarchy head Kurt Sutter, who breaks down his perspective on what studios really want, after TNT programming head Michael Wright insists that hit television is all about the writers: "It's sort of a joke, the idea that this season we're gonna do something completely new... And at the end of the day what they want is the same old shit."
Showrunners Trailer from Showrunners Documentary on Vimeo.
ยท 'Showrunners' to explore the making of modern American TV [InContention]