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January 31, 2010
 
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Save the date 2/23/10, The Cable Chiefs
HRTS Newsmaker Luncheon Recap: The Hitmakers
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The Hitmakers video and pics posted
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The Cable Chiefs Luncheon
The very popular Cable Chiefs luncheon returns to HRTS. Panelists and moderator to be announced. Advance tickets available now. Click here for more info and to purchase tickets.

Tue, Feb. 23rd
11:30am - 2:00pm
The Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel


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HRTS Newsmaker Luncheon Recap: The Hitmakers


by Chris Davison, chris@lthmedia.com 
Lightning in a bottle. Heat. That ole black magic. From time to time in Hollywood, something comes along that just feels right. You know it when you read the script, you know it when you watch the audition.

On December 16th 2009, a group of our industry’s hottest hitmakers gathered at the annual HRTS Hitmakers luncheon at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel to discuss the anatomy of a hit. The inimitable Peter Tolan of “Rescue Me” gave an encore command performance as panel moderator and joining him on stage were multi-hyphenate panelists Matt Weiner of “Mad Men”, Steven Levitan of “Modern Family”, Ryan Murphy of “Glee”, and Carter Bays of “How I Met Your Mother”.

Tolan began his remarks by noting that the crowd in the room was equal in size to “last night’s viewing audience of the Jay Leno Show”. His first question to the panel was about rotten jobs they’d had before breaking into television. Levitan said he cleaned bathrooms at a day camp, Murphy said he once worked at a Florsheim shoe store but was fired by 4PM of his first day “because I refused to touch feet”, and Weiner pointed out that “I’m a writer because I’m unemployable in every other profession”. 

Art imitates life which imitates art so Tolan asked the showrunners how much of their work is inspired by their real lives. Bays said that “How I Met Your Mother” is based on his real life and that of co-creator Craig Thomas, that their characters are based on people they actually know. Murphy said that he remembers being a teenaged performer and how much optimism there is that anybody can be a star, adding that his show “is theatrical but growing up is theatrical”.

During the early stages, when do you have a sense of a project that it’s going to take off? Tolan asked this directly of Levitan, who said that his show “just felt right from the very beginning” and that he remembers “being on the set when we were shooting the pilot, I kept turning to people going ‘this is good, I like this’”.

Once a show is a hit the audience has high expectations for each new season, so Tolan asked Weiner what sorts of feelings he gets from the anticipation of his audience. Weiner said that for the first season he was focused on not wanting to fail, that his second season concern was not losing the success that his show had achieved, and that for the third season and beyond he wants “the audience to feel that they own the show”. Audience expectations can put a lot of pressure on showrunners but Levitan added that “the pressure is outweighed by the joy of people that like the show and care about the show”.  

Tolan next asked Bays about Neil Patrick Harris and his decision to come out. Bays said it happened during production of the 2nd season of the show, that the story they were shooting that week was a “coming out” story involving a family member of Harris’ character of Barney. When Harris himself decided to come out, everyone involved with the show was supportive, from top to bottom.

Along the lines of actors and casting, how do you attract top talent to your new show? Murphy said that he wanted Jane Lynch for the arch nemesis character of Sue Sylvester and so to get her attention he wrote the character description as “probably on horse estrogen, rumored to have posed for Penthouse Magazine”. He sent the description to her and she said ‘yes’ before she finished reading it.

In the final analysis, what is ‘it’? A hit show results from passionate writers who have an intuitive sense of what works and what doesn’t, a talented cast of professional actors, an undying love and respect for one’s audience and of course, horse estrogen.

 

 
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