The Point Radio: Secrets Of The TV SHOWRUNNERS

SHOWRUNNERS is the first ever feature length documentary film to explore the fascinating world of US television showrunners. These are the people are responsible for creating, writing and overseeing every element of production on the biggest television drama and comedy series. We have an exclusive preview of the crowd funded project direct from the guys who did it. Plus, it’s been five years to the day since we pumped out the first POINT PODCAST – wait until you hear what the big story was “way back” then! THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other  mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Transcript

The Point Radio. Hey, it's Mike Raub. If you love television, you're going to really love a new documentary called Showrunners about just exactly that. We have an exclusive story coming up for you.

And in the meantime, has it really been five years? Wow. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio.

Get The Point Radio. There's no business like show, business like no, business like show. Get The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. There's no business like show, business like no, business like show.

Get The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. For students of the genre and just fans of television in general, the documentary Showrunners

is something you have to keep an eye on. The Kickstarter funded project follows several showrunners from some of television's biggest hits and misses. It gives you an unprecedented look on what happens behind the scenes on the shows. I talked to director Dez Doyle and producer Ryan McGuffey.

And the first thing I asked them to explain was exactly what a showrunner does. I think most people view a showrunner as the writer of a show. But that's one out of 48 different things that a showrunner has to be doing on a show. And to be honest with you, most showrunners spend the least amount of their time actually writing unless they're maybe re-writing to a certain extent.

Because there's so many other things for them to be doing. If you're running a show, basically you've got six different episodes at different stages in the process going on all the time. And you've got to be keeping the headspace available to go, where are we in this, this, this, this and this.

And you're running from editing to wardrobe to on set to dealing with actors to casting to budget. It's project management. Yeah, it's a crazy job. And economics and creative.

So who do we see in the film? We've got about 22 showrunners in the film. We've got a few actors and we've got some heads and networks in there as well for the other side of the coin. Are there some shows and showrunners that are featured more than others?

There are people that we spend a bit more time with. Hart Hanson, we kind of do a day in the life of a showrunner. A little bit with Hart. You're a showrunner on Bones. Yeah.

And there are two other people that I don't want to name just because there's little things that I'd like people to discover when they actually go to see the film a little bit. But a show that we kind of follow over the course of a year. On someone else we follow who unfortunately went through a difficult kind of cancellation process.

So it's trying to give different kind of sides to the story. But yeah, I think there's certainly enough in there for anybody who's a fan of TV that they're going to want to watch it for sure. I asked the guys how they managed to convince the people in Hollywood to let them step behind the curtain and to film what actually goes on.

I mean, when we originally pitched it, we were very lucky that the people I originally pitched to did understand the showrunner to a certain extent and how important they were becoming and the prominence that was being given to them at that time. I mean, it was a bit of a gamble because I'm from Ireland and when we came over, no one here knew us.

And it took us a little bit of time to actually start opening some doors and whatever. But once we were able to prove that we could do that and we shot some material, we brought it back, we showed them and they went, okay, this is great. We kind of ran with it from there. But yeah, it's been kind of amazing for me, to be honest with you.

We had a wish list of people that we wanted to try and get. We got almost everyone on the wish list and that's pretty phenomenal. I mean, I've had to pinch myself sometimes when I've been interviewing people. You know, you're sitting in a bad robot talking to JJ Abrams. It's kind of like a wow moment.

In fact, when we went to do the interview, we filmed it and they have a little theater, a preview theater in there. And when we went in, there was stuff from Star Trek into darkness on it there. They're like, take it down, take it down. You kind of watch that.

Of course, the big question here is, when can we see the film? We signed a distribution deal for North America with Submarine Entertainment, who were also on board with Search for Sugar Man and Man on Wire, a lot of very successful documentary films. We're very happy to have them because they generally only tend to invest their time in

projects that they really, you know, they love and they're like, we're hoping… We're pretty close to finished with the post and at this stage. And there are a lot of discussions about what is the next stage that we're going to get to at the moment. But I can't, unfortunately, at this moment in time, say we're out on this date and time.

But it won't be too long to wait from this point. Once it makes the initial rounds, I agreed with Des and Ryan that this would be a wonderful teaching tool for television classes all around the world. We've had approaches from amazing people who are interested in both screening the film and a lot of writing programs have shown interest.

A lot of these writers, they all came from somewhere, usually writing programs themselves. They're professors. We've been in touch with a number of people already. I mean, for me, that would be a fantastic legacy for the film. To do a tour.

Can you imagine doing a tour of this, something like that? It would be fantastic. Yeah. But it's a matter of whether the demand is there. I think it is, but we think it is.

Yeah. I mean, certainly, I think there's enough of interest to people. If someone wanted to be a writer and wanted to be a showrunner, if that was the game plan for them, there's certainly enough interesting material in the film. And I think enough stuff that maybe they wouldn't know that it's definitely an essential watch

for them. There is no de facto standard for showrunning. There's no one way to do it. So what Des has attempted to do is illustrate how differently everyone has approached it and how differently everyone has fallen into it or chased after it.

Finally, I want a little tease. What in the film is going to surprise us? Part of the film where we're kind of dealing with the actor's point of view, there is an actor who is remarkably candid about his relationship with the showrunner on his show. And I think people might be quite taken aback by some of that material.

Not that he's overly negative in that way about it, but he's remarkably honest about, from an actor's point of view, what difficulties can arise with the showrunner and how tense and strained that relationship can be from. So yeah, I could imagine people talking about that moment after they see the film for sure. Follow the progress of the project right now at showrunnersthemovie.com.

See some cool exclusive clips too. And follow the guys on Twitter and on Facebook as well. I told you before that pop culture changes minute to minute for sure. So imagine how much stuff has come down in five years. Well as you look back on our clock, here's the big story we were telling you about on

the very first podcast. Depending on when you're listening to this, either the spirit has opened or we'll hit movie screens in a few hours and all weekend long there's going to be lots of opinions, reviews and tons of commentary on the web. But the real question is how did it translate from comics to film or even more specific

from Will Eisner to Frank Miller. Well Frank feels he did the grand old man the justice his work really deserves. My relationship with Will Eisner was a long and abiding one where we argued incessantly. And the very first time he saw one of my pages he told me what was wrong with it. We just kept arguing ever since.

Meanwhile back in 2013, all the news wasn't great for toys or us in the third quarter as we told you the real sad story falls on Barnes and Noble, the biggest losers of customers from the last year of the 24 chains that were surveyed in America's research group over the past couple of weeks. The survey consisted of talking to a thousand consumers by phones and asking what chains

they shopped at in 2012 and again in 2013 and Barnes and Noble lost a repeat customer battle with only 43.9% of the folks who shopped there last year coming back this year. Some analysts say that this indication of them losing 50% of their customers could spell the end of Barnes and Noble sometime during 2014. House of Lies is headed back to Showtime for a third season but before that there's a couple

of real interesting changes. The cast of the show taped a live improv comedy special at the Upright Citizens Brigade in LA at Uniquet itself but it'll also premiere first on Showtime.com, the network's YouTube channel, the House of Lies Facebook page and the Showtime preview app. That'll take place coming up on the 30th and then on the 31st it goes live on the Showtime

network at 10 Eastern Time. The whole cast of the show is there including Don Cheadle, Kristen Bell, Josh Lawson and Ben Schwartz and some season 3 guest stars too and by the way season 3 does premiere on Showtime on Sunday January 12th. I guess it's logical considering all the Ant-Man movie news the past few weeks but a CGC certified

copy of Tales to Astonish number 27, a 9.2 copy by the way in case you're wondering, sold for $65,000 by Pedigree Comics this month. The book which of course features the first appearance of the Ant-Man had last sold for about $45,000 in May of 2010. Another copy sold in 2009 for a little over $32,000 which makes this a pretty big jump

for the book. The second highest graded copy of the comic to hit CGC so far. As one familiar face it may be a little hard to find in X-Men Days the Future Past. That is Anna Paquin playing Rogue. Her scene did not make the final cut of the movie.

Director Bryan Singer said it would be available though on the DVD. No word yet on other returning players like Ellen Page or Sean Ashmore, Days the Future Past do in theaters on May 23rd. Jake and Amir is making the jump from the web to television they've been put in development for a series at TBS.

It's written by and of course will feature Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumfeld. Ed Helms from The Office is going to produce the series for TBS. As you want to plan your movie viewing ahead for a few years James Cameron has announced the three planned Avatar sequels and said they'll be in theaters at Christmas time December 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Preliminary designs for the movies are already underway and expect to go before the cameras in New Zealand sometime next fall. Now more than ever Toys R Us is looking for a miracle from Santa Claus over the last few weeks of the year. They reported a $605 million loss in the third quarter and they blame competition from stores

like Walmart and sources like Amazon as well. A lot of retail analysts say it could be a do or die situation in the fourth quarter for Toys R Us. Katie Courrigs is syndicated daytime talk shows coming to an end. It will go off the air in June of next year.

Some episodes will be live between now and then. Courrigs has moved on already and will be juggling a second job for the next few months. She'll be working for Yahoo in their new global anchor position. Ratings during the holiday season are always a little wacky with so many repeats and holiday specials.

However, it was interesting to note that one of the number one shows was I Love Lucy which is kind of retro in its own way. Those two repackaged and recolored episodes helped CBS win the night on December the 20th. One more Marvel Avengers rumor to wrap up the year and this one involving a possible new villain being added to Avengers Age of Ultron.

There are some rumors out there at least from the folks at Latina Review that Baron Strucker may be appearing in the film. Allegedly, the plan would be to introduce the character somehow even in a flashback maybe in Captain America Winter Soldier and then use that movie to bridge the gap between the first two Avengers films and then to bring that character into the second Avengers movie

as one of the bad guys of course along with James Spader's Ultron. The point, the point, here's what's cool. Right off the bat let's remind you one more time that due to the Christmas and New Year's holiday comic book delivery into stores is a little bit different. Some stores may put their stuff out on Christmas Eve and then next week on New Year's Eve.

Others may wait until after the holiday so check with your local retailer a pretty small list overall of items coming out this week mostly from Dark Horse DC and a couple of Marvels as well but the ones we think you should look for are of course Justice League number 26 and Forever Evil number 4 both tie-ins to that Forever Evil continuing arc from DC. From IDW the Doctor Who 2013 is special number one this will help you recover from the loss

of Matt Smith as the Doctor a few days ago. Image gives us James Robinson's Savior as it begins with issue number one this week and Marvel continues the very popular Origin series from a decade ago with a second run of that. Origin 2 starts a five issue run this week beautiful art by Adam Kuber.

Again check with your local store as to when all the new comics will be out for the next week or two and if you're traveling over the holidays make sure you check out all comic stores in the area where you are. By phone do comic book locator service at 1-888-COMIC-BOOK. Check out the link on the front of the ComicMix dot com website or try a website called

FindMyComicShop.com. That's it for right now we'll be back before the end of the year one more time to get another five years started but before we do that want to say thanks to some folks including Mike and Glenn at ComicMix Tatiana at MichaelDavisWorld.com and of course you for coming along every couple of days to catch us on great websites like ComicMix and Michael Davis World and to check

us out in the VITunes podcast directory as well. In the meantime plenty of pop culture between now and the time of the year changes, catch it and get the Point Radio dot com listen free or take us on any mobile device and in case you get a new one Android or Apple you can listen to us free with the iNed Radio app.

Get it in your app store or at iNedRadio.com. Social media will be cooking the next few days and we'll be in the middle of it find out what we're doing by following us on Facebook and Twitter at The Point Radio and we'll see you before the end of 2013. Merry Christmas!

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