Interview: Jeffrey Lieber — Part 4

Jeffrey Lieber is a screenwriter (Tangled, Tuck Everlasting) and TV writer-producer (Miami Medical, The Whole Truth, Pan Am, Necessary Roughness). He also received co-writing credit for the pilot episode of “Lost”. I recently spoke with Jeff about his background, his screenwriting and TV writing projects, and the writing craft.

Today in Part 4, Jeff talks about the success of the TV series “Necessary Roughness,” his screenwriting and answers some writing questions posed on Twitter:

Scott: “Unnecessary Roughness” has been quite successful. What do you think is the key to its success?

Jeff: I think Callie plays an incredibly fun character and a fantastic personality. I think it is similar to what USA does in some ways and different in others. The first two seasons I was executive producer and co‑ran the show with Craig and Liz who created it. This season, I’m just simply a consulting producer, so I’m just there to help out while Craig and Liz are running the show completely on their own. I think they’ve done a pretty amazing job in terms of transitioning the show to something new.

I was part of the re‑breaking and the changing of the show off the beginning and now I’m in one, two days a week, tops, just communicating with them via phone most of the time.

Scott: You worked on series at the broadcast level, CBS, ABC and NBC, and you’ve worked on series at the cable level here at USA, “Unnecessary Roughness.” What are the differences between working on a broadcast TV series and a cable TV series?

Jeff: It’s very similar to what existed maybe 5 to 10 years ago in film, which is that network television has become branded material, very large canvas stuff. You need upwards of 10 million people, minimum, to stay on the air in network television. Cable television is much more niche oriented. Some shows with a viewership of 2 to 3 million are huge hits. There’s “The Walking Dead,” which has now eclipsed half of network television. Most of the cable shows that we all know and love don’t actually have an audience that are nearly as large as anything that has failed on network.

I had a really good experience with CBS on my show, even though it did not succeed. As good as an experience as you could have with the network and not have it go forward. But that said, I found that because the stakes are so high and because the expectations are so large, everything feels like it’s on a very short leash. You find yourself, spending a lot of time putting out fires constantly.

Cable tends to be a little more gentle, but it’s slower. The upside to network television is that they pay you more and that things move very quickly. The upside to cable television is that you have more artistic freedom, but things tend to move very slowly. You can be in process.

I know that Craig and Liz, from the time they first sold “Necessary Roughness” until the time I was hired and we started a room was almost two years. That’s a long time to be beholden to one idea and not know whether it’s going to go or not go.

Scott: Let’s dig in to that a little bit, because per the WGA, there’s been an increase in TV writers in the last 5 years and a decrease in feature film writers. Also, there’s been this sense that this is like a new golden age for TV writing. What do you think is going on there?

Jeff: Mainly, I think it’s because first of all, television writing is very tough on writers, but it’s writer‑friendly in the sense that you are making the calls. It’s the inverse of the way film works in the sense that the last cut is yours. Because television has to happen over many episodes in long arcs, the heart and soul and the voice of the show lives with the writer, not with the director. In that sense, it’s very friendly. The other is that because it’s a medium that, my show on CBS, if I remembered correctly, aired to about nine million, nine and a half a million viewers. You have to check on that, but if you multiply that by seven bucks, you’ve got a $70 million opening. I’m doing the math wrong. But in film terms, you got a massive opening and that happens with all TV shows. There really is an ability to reach an audience that film doesn’t.

I think the biggest reason is that because of the cost of marketing and everything else that goes on the film side, they have gotten out of the business of hitting doubles. All they’ll try to do is hit home runs, which means that every piece of material is movie with a two after it or some piece of branded material or a game or a candy bar. That is stifling on some level. Also, just how they ask writers to perform on films has been so demeaning and so people have gravitated towards television.

I think the medium is much more adaptable to a world where you’re watching stuff on TV, on computers and your iPads and everything else. I think that the medium is better poised to make the transition of the technological times and television right now.

Scott: You’re still writing feature films?

Jeff: I do. I write one a year, maybe two. Every other year, dependent on a producer I know and a project that is interesting to me. I don’t currently want to be one of twelve writers who are adapting some movie. I’m already good at that. It would make me crazy, the stories you hear over and over again about being a part of a council of writers where you haven’t seen the movie, and you realize there’s seven other writers doing that, and so your and so your stuff is put in. That to me is a hard road and doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. For the most part, I’ve been working in TV to work off a blind deal or stacking my own stuff. I come into the world with a job and my job is, “What I’m going to write,” and not, “If I’m going to write.”

Scott: You’re a Twitter guy [@jefflieber]. Here’s a question for you, “Twitter, great way to interface with the fans or best excuse ever to avoid writing?”

Jeff: Probably both. In fact, definitely both. I certainly know that I can while away an afternoon when I should be writing something. In that sense, I also think it is a dynamic interesting medium that allows…one of the things we did starting with the first season of “Necessary Roughness,” is we created a sort of real‑time tweet thread for T.J. who is one of the leads on “Necessary Roughness”, a football player. We built into, for the East Coast feed of the show, tweet his voice in connection with moments that were going on in the show. I just find that to be a coming out of the theater, coming out of a medium whereby things happen live and mistakes can be made. There’s little bit of a walking on tightrope element to things.

That, to me, is exciting. I think that the continual interfacing between scripted material and live events, here’s what will give television the advantage over film and other mediums because there’s something live happening. There’s something that is potentially unscripted about it all which is nice.

Scott: You actually occasionally respond to people on Twitter when people ask you questions. I’ve tagged a couple of your responses and I’m wondering if you could follow up on them. For example, one time you got a question from someone about writing a spec script for TV. You said, “The truth is, nobody really reads specs anymore. Agents, staff and show runners are going to write 53 pages, write an original.” Could you elaborate on that?

Jeff: I know all people, staffing, writers who do read specs like a “Game of Thrones” episode or a “Mad Men” episode. For me, what is really hard about that is, there is a real‑time level to which the show exists and then the spec script exist. A lot of times, if it is a show I know, the spec script is going to cross over with what is actually happening and I get confused and bored. The other thing is that, it’s a little hard for me to tell whether anyone has chops based on they’re taking other people’s characters and trying to mimic them. It’s an interesting skill. On the show that’s mine, I know that I have to be the last pen on the paper anyway so I really want is a writer’s ability to understand structure and character to the story.

They write great, that’s fantastic, but I don’t require them to completely learn to mimic my voice. I tend to say to people when I do meetings for staffing, “Give me the best material you’ve got. If that’s spec great, I’ll read 15 pages and go, ‘Oh, they voiced it right. I’ll take it.’”

I figure, if you’re going to spend your time writing, why not write something that if somebody loves it, they’ll go, “Let’s make this.” As opposed to an episode of “Mad Men” that they go, “Oh, OK, you can write. Now what are you going to do?” No one’s ever going to make your spec episode of “Mad Men.”

Scott: Twenty years ago, nobody would have written an original spec pilot for a TV series. What do you attribute this trend toward writing original spec TV pilots?

Jeff: I think it’s just so hard. When I came out to L.A., the Internet was still fairly a small piece of industry in terms of, how I had an email account, but I think the proliferation of places you can read screen plays, people who now have computers and can think about writing series, there’s just so much material out there that it’s almost impossible to stand out with your full episode of “Game of Thrones.” How do you make that stand out in a way that is so dynamic that somebody will go, “I’ll give you the job?” I think it’s just an adaptation of the industry where if you want to be seen, you have to write something wholly original and yours. Otherwise, you’re just in a pile somewhere.

Scott: Here’s another Tweet you did responding to a question: “Two ways into TV. Number one, make splash in other mediums, capitalized, parenthesis, make graphic novel, left‑wing website. Number two, get a member already in TV.” So that’s about originality and the freshness of the idea and the writing, right?

Jeff: Yeah, I mean, I had an assistant for many years who is now on staff on “Necessary Roughness.” He’s doing a great job. He’s doing a stunning job over there. I’ve got a new one now and actually, my job with these people is to try to teach them what I can and hopefully won’t pick the stuff that I do wrong. Help them transition from my assistant to a job somewhere. When it comes time to staff up for a TV show, there’s 100 people who are way up top in the co‑EP producer level and as you go down the ranks towards staff writers there’s thousands and thousands. The question is, “How do you get seen?” It all comes out of having one piece of material that really is what you do incredibly well and it’s in a voice that is, in the first 10 pages, “Oh, that’s cool.” That’s a pretty interesting trick.

Tomorrow in Part 5, Jeff discusses some aspects of the writing craft.

For Part 1, go here.

Part 2, go here.

Part 3, go here.

Please stop by comments to thank Jeff and ask any questions you may have.

Jeff is repped by CAA and Madhouse Entertainment.

Twitter: @JeffLieber.