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 A member profile by Chris Davison, chris@lthmedia.com
Michael Wright is Executive Vice President, Head of Programming, TBS, TNT and Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Micheal is also an elected HRTS officer and board member. He began his career as an actor and has since worked in many areas of the business, from development to agenting to programming. I recently had a chance to interview Michael to discuss Frank Capra, character, and Alvin Toffler.
Q: Can you tell us about your background and what made you want to work in entertainment? How did you get involved with the HRTS?
-I began acting when I was about eight years old, and I stuck with it until I was well into my 20s. I studied theater, film and television at UCLA. I worked in regional theater, in Hollywood as a day player and landed the occasional guest star spot, but it was a struggle. I had much more luck in the theater world and made most of my living working out of town, in regional theater and summer stock.
It was a good life, and I had a great time doing it until my mid 20s, when I had the first true epiphany of my life. I was working on a “bus and truck” tour of “A View from the Bridge,” traveling to 36 states over six months. One night after the show, we were all traveling late at night to the next town on the tour, sitting in the lounge at the rear of the bus. There was another actor in the show, an older guy, going on and on, complaining about his life and his career. I suddenly had a true moment of clarity – a voice in my head shouted at me, “Oh my God, I’m going to become THIS guy! I’m a decent but not great actor; I’m OK looking but not Hollywood handsome; Lew Wasserman is not my uncle … I’m going to be this guy!”
I was pretty confident that I could take what I had learned from so many years as an actor and a director in the theater and translate that to a career in development. I recognized that I myself was not a great actor. But I had, I believed, the ability to recognize great acting – or, for that matter, great writing, directing, etc. And I believed that was a skill set from which I could build a career.
I knew enough to be aware that the best thing I could do would be to find a job as an assistant at a network studio or agency and from that spin myself into a development job somewhere. I landed a job at CAA, met some very smart people and ended up being an agent and staying for four years.
As part of my agenting responsibilities, I was responsible for coverage of CBS, TNT and HBO. Primarily as a result of having gotten to know the execs there, I was offered a job at CBS and took it. Eight years later, I moved from CBS to TNT. It’s been a remarkable journey here at Turner; I came here originally to be the movie guy and, when the network decided to enter the original series business, they took a leap of faith and gave me the job. I’m glad they did – and I’d like to believe they’re glad they did, too.
As for the HRTS, when I was an agent at CAA, I went to all the HRTS luncheons and loved them. I lived in the world of CAA, and I saw the business through that very specific lens, so it was great to go to the luncheons and hear from broadcasters, programmers and producers with different points of view. At heart, I have always been a TV guy, fascinated by the business of programming. I used to especially love going to the network presidents luncheons to hear about their plans, their strategies.
Back then, the television business was still operating under more of an old school, “traditional” model – four networks, a big fall premiere season and summers dominated by repeats. Series on cable were low budget and considered second tier.
The television business is radically different today. It seems we’ve truly entered the era Alvin Toffler predicted in “Future Shock,” where change occurs more quickly than we can practically adapt. So keeping abreast of what’s going on, and how that change is being addressed by others, is more important than ever. The luncheons I used to go to when I was just starting out were a great networking opportunity, a chance to meet your peers and competitors by going from table and table. It was one of the better industry opportunities for social networking, long before we had the Internet and Facebook. Now they’re still a great opportunity to reach out to peers you might not otherwise speak with frequently and share ideas about how we’re all adapting to the rapid change occurring around us.
Q: In looking at your original content, what is your development process like?
-we start buying scripts in September. We are through buying by January. We work with our partners to develop scripts through the late spring, and then we will typically order three or so pilots to be shot through the summer. We screen and test those pilots in December and January. Then Steve Koonin, president of Turner Entertainment Networks, and I decide which ones we are going to premiere that following June or July.
Q: How does your acting background inform your decisions when it comes character, story, etc.?
-like most actors, I read most scripts first and foremost from the point view of the characters. I believe that, in good storytelling, character should generate story and not the other way around. When characters exist solely to forward the story – or worse, to service a concept – those characters typically end up flat and dull. When character informs and generates story, and when those characters are the result of a writer working from a place of familiarity and intimacy, those characters – and the stories that follow – tend to be much more authentic and relatable.
When James Duff came in and pitched the character of Brenda Leigh Johnson in “The Closer,” it was immediately evident this was a character that he knew intimately, and his articulation of her was exhilarating. When Kyra Sedgwick came to the process and brought her own instincts and colors to the character, the result was exciting and special – Brenda Leigh Johnson became an iconic television character because the process worked the way it is supposed to: a gifted actor was given a perfectly written character, and the combination was magic.
Having been an actor 100% informs what I will buy and what I won’t. Television works on a fundamentally different paradigm than most contemporary film. It’s all about the characters. People tune in every week to see characters, to see someone they come to know, and like, or at least relate to. They come back because they care what happens to that character. We tend to develop franchise dramas at TNT for the same reason those franchises (cops, lawyers, doctors) have always been popular – character is revealed in crisis, in the choices your protagonist makes when the stakes are highest.
Q: What makes “The Closer” so successful?
-great writing, great acting, great directing, great producing, all in service to the right show for the right network.
When we first began developing series in late 2003, we knew from the jump that Monday at 9 p.m. would be where we would start. At the time, “Law & Order” repeats were really the backbone of the weekday prime schedule. We believed the right idea was to program a procedural drama that “Law & Order” fans would find accessible, because we knew it would be the lead-in, and to give it more of a cable sensibility in that it had (and has) a quirkier sensibility in its characters and themes.
If you look at our other series, they all hew a bit to that paradigm – a contemporary, complicated/unpredictable protagonist at the center of a fairly traditional (and accessible) franchise. That is what has worked for us and our audience.
After “The Closer” launched and succeeded so well, our next goal was to find a lead-out that would be compatible with and helped by “The Closer” and allow us to build the night. Both “Saving Grace” and “Raising the Bar” have worked within that structure. This season, Monday from 9-11 works really nicely with “The Closer” and “Raising the Bar.” “Saving Grace” has been able to bring its own audience with it to Tuesdays at 10 p.m., pairing nicely with “HawthoRNe.”
Q: What are your thoughts on the HRTS’ new mentoring program?
-it’s an excellent way to do something that is central and unique to this business. In my opinion, one of the very cool things about our industry is that it operates on a very old school mentor/apprentice paradigm. I don’t know anybody in a senior position who got there without the direct and express help of somebody senior to them along the way who took a chance on them. I would not have a career without Kevin Huvane at CAA or Steve Koonin and Phil Kent here at Turner. It’s how it’s done – we learn from those who came before us, and hopefully we can share that experience and insight with those who will, sooner or later, send us home!
I taught for a couple of years at USC and at Los Angeles Valley College, and I used to tell my classes that if they hung in there for the first 10 weeks then, in the last week of the course, I would reveal to them the “secrets” of a successful career in this business. Of course, there is no secret – I just pointed out to them that Hollywood works like any other fairly insular business, in that careers are built on the dual pillars of talent and relationships. In most cases, having one without the other makes it very difficult to excel.
You have to develop a creative point of view. You have to stand for something, creatively – and I believe that’s true whether you’re a writer, a director, a creative executive, a publicist, an agent, whatever – you have to be aware of, nurture and develop your own taste. You have to stand for something, creatively, and let people know what that is. Otherwise … why are you in this business?
Second – and this is where the HRTS mentoring program can really be important – you have to develop your relationships. You might have the most highly evolved, refined creative point of view in the world – you might have the most distinctive voice in town – but if you aren’t in a position to have that voice heard, then you’re not doing the relationship building you need to do. This is where the HRTS mentoring program comes in.
Monster.com will list a bunch of jobs that are available and publicly known but, in Hollywood, by the time most of those jobs are publicly posted they’ve already been filled. You have to know where the jobs are before they’re posted, and you’ll only know that because someone tells you.
Q: Where do you want your programming to be five years from now?
-continually evolving in terms of our storytelling worlds, yet staying focused on character-based dramas with a populist theme. In programming, it’s very true that, to borrow from William Goldman, no one knows anything. At the end of the day, we’re all guessing, and my guesses tend to be based more on belief than on data.
I am a populist at heart, and I believe in the power of film and television to inspire people. When I was a freshman at UCLA, I was going through a rough time that winter, questioning my whole decision to move here and try to find a place in this business. The UCLA Film Archive was screening “It’s A Wonderful Life” one night (this was before it came to TV and became ubiquitous and, unfortunately, something of a holiday cliché). I went to see it and was blown away.
I went out of that theater inspired. It informed my own creative point of view. I love and appreciate and truly respect the darker, more cynical entertainment out there – it’s vital that art challenges our long-held beliefs and makes us look at ourselves honestly. But I think it’s equally important that we allow for storytelling that inspires or heals or just simply entertains, too.
My own particular lens is more akin to Frank Capra’s, and I respect the power of television to enlighten or inspire. Our TNT dramas attempt to be inspiring without resorting to clichés or overly familiar characters. I hope whatever we’re doing in five years, it’s still reflective of that belief. I want to prove something to myself – that the work can be contemporary and complicated and still be affirming and have broad commercial appeal. I get the sense that some might believe these things to be mutually exclusive. I don’t think they are. I think it’s very hard to do both together, but I think that’s a great bar to set for yourself.
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