"Will the audience know who Hitler is?" And Other Notes Given To TV Writers
These days, humans get feedback on their work all the time and from multiple sources.
And the feedback ranges from being super-helpful to bullshit.
If you’re a creative in TV, film or theatre, this feedback is called “notes”.
A small percentage of people who give notes can help your work reach its potential. And a small percentage of that small percentage can help it soar beyond its potential.
But this post isn’t about those angels.
Nor is it about the givers of moderately helpful notes.
This is about the people who hand out howlers; the notes you need to delicately sidestep to ensure the show you’re working on doesn’t collapse into a steaming heap.
But here’s the problem: notes are given by people representing the companies that finance the show. So you must listen to all their notes.
And the creatives who get the most notes, and therefore do the most listening, are writers. That’s because stakeholders know if they’re going to get their vision of the world on the screen, it’s way easier to do it when the project is just words on a page.
But sometimes notes start to come in before a word has even been written. Arrival writer, Eric Heisserer, tells the story of a studio executive ordering changes as Heisserer was pitching him an idea: “It was the start of a pitch, and I said, ‘There’s a spy and his wife.’ The executive said, ‘There is no wife. Continue.'”
From 2011 to 2018 there was a Twitter account that helped buoy the spirits of brow beaten writers everywhere. It was called @TvNetworkNotes and it was a forum in which TV writers were invited to submit the worst notes they’d received.
Here’s a selection of my favourites. The notes are extreme examples of what writers deal with on a daily basis - but, at the same time, not that extreme.
“A girl can’t say ‘I need to get laid.’ It’s off-putting. Have her gay best friend say ‘Girl, you need to get laid’ instead.” – NBC
“Is Star Wars really a thing that people care about?” – Comedy Central
“Will the audience know who Hitler is?” – BBC
“I feel like this character isn’t cool enough, could we put him on a skateboard?” – Nickelodeon
“This show needs to make sense to someone who just looked up from taking a bong hit.” – TruTV
(re: The Walking Dead pilot) “This is awesome. I really love it. Does it have to have zombies in it?” – NBC
(After a girl goes through heavy chemo) “Is there a way to make this scene a little sexier?” – ABC Family
"Can you make it look more like a legitimate time machine?" – Disney
"Can we make sure she's more bitter with life so we're ok with her dying?" – NBC
"Take out Auld Lang Syne. I've never heard of it." - VH1
"I have no problem with the idea - it just makes me uncomfortable and I don't think we should do it." – TruTV
If you embark on a career in TV writing, you will get notes better, worse, funnier and unfunnier than those above. And, as always, it’s important to never argue. If a note isn’t great, just obediently write it down and say, “I’ll take a look at it.”
Next time, we’ll discuss the job interview.