INDUSTRY 101 EVENT SERIES
It's four in the morning. Your phone rings. It's the producer who's shooting your script. There's a problem. Remember that really great scene you wrote? Yeah, well, they just lost the location it was supposed to be shot in so you’ve got to find a way to make it work set in a coffee shop instead. By the way, one of the actors isn't available anymore so you've got to cut that character out of the scene and all the other scenes they haven't shot yet. Your phone goes click-buzz as the producer hangs up to deal with an angry A-lister playing the lead. You take a breath, open your laptop, and go to work.
Not all productions are that hectic but rarely do things go according to plan. A screenplay’s never really finished. Production might shoot everything and realize they need an extra scene or two to clarify a few plot points, or to replace wholecloth scenes that aren't working. Sometimes you'll have to compromise and engage in numerous production rewrites. Maybe it's your script. Maybe it's someone else's you've been hired to treat as its "script doctor." Join us to explore and demystify what writers involved in production rewrites can expect.
FEATURING
Erin O’Malley
Erin O’Malley is an Emmy, Golden Globe and Kidscreen Award winning TV/Film director and producer. Her numerous credits include Curb Your Enthusiasm, New Girl, Da Ali G Show, Single Parents, American Born Chinese, The Crossover, Doogie Kamealoha, M.D., The Grinder, One Mississippi, Fresh Off the Boat, Speechless and The Sarah Silverman Program. Most recently, Erin has been executive producing and directing the hit series Goosebumps for Sony/Disney+.
She is a four-time nominee of the Producers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television in Comedy, a DGA Award nominee for Best Directing of a Comedy Series, and a Women’s Image Network Award nominee for Outstanding Show Produced by A Woman. Erin in a member of the DGA and has served multiple terms on the Producers Guild of America Board of Directors, having received one of its highest honors, The Charles Fitzsimmons Award bestowed for exemplary service. Erin is originally from Tucson, AZ, and is a graduate of the USC School of Cinema/TV. She lives in Los Angeles and loves spending her free time running, weightlifting, and traveling or attending the theatre with her wife and two daughters.
Dave Finkel
Dave Finkel is a writer and producer who currently resides in Portland, OR, where he moved during the latest global pandemic. Which one should always do in the middle of a global pandemic.
Dave’s been flogging the TV screens with his abject mediocrity for the better part of a quarter century. Most recently, he and his partner Brett Baer wrote and Executive Produced the hit Apple+ show Bad Sisters, starring Sharon Horgan, for which he received a BAFTA award and a Peabody Award. Prior to that, Dave, Brett and creator Liz Meriwether (and the outstanding Erin O’Malley) ran the Fox TV show New Girl from the very beginning to the very, very end, squeezing out every morsel of comedy out of that sucker. In addition to that, he’s run or worked on a wide expanse of shows, including United States of Tara (for which he received a prime-time Emmy), 30 Rock (what? Another Emmy? Hilarious), Friends spin-off Joey (No Emmy), Just Shoot Me and Norm, starring Norm Macdonald. He started his career on the classic animated shows Pinky and The Brain and Animaniacs.
As stated, he lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and three children. He grew up in Los Angeles, but also lived in New York City, where he just puttered about and did bad things to himself. Nothing sexy. Just hung out, really. In addition to writing for TV, Dave is a degenerate board game player, which sounds like an oxymoron, but it isn’t because it takes up the rest of what little brain space he has left. He also enjoys woodworking and tinkering with technology, to greater and lesser extents. It’s a miracle that he hasn’t lost any appendages, burned down the house or electrocuted anyone. Yet. Wait for it.
He’s just surprised anyone wants to hear anything he has to say. Take everything he says with a grain of salt. He’s a lot.
