The Creative Types: David Shore, Katie Jacobs, et al

To put a different spin on Shore's seeming, and perhaps real, arrogance when it comes to fans' opinions, consider the immense amount of insanity that show runners and stars are blasted with just about every day if they care to read tweets, comments on entertainment sites, etc. Very often these public messages and opinions by 'the fandom' are truly the work of a very small group of people who vote multiple times in polls and comment in many places. Each of us in this forum, of course, is intelligent and blessed with incredible good taste :wink:, but let's face it, there are a ton of loonies out there, and I've read things online that are just crazy. Shore and the other show runners have probably grown pretty thick calluses to protect themselves from 'fan opinion'. I agree with this and think they should avoid fandom like the plague. It seems to me the House team has done the opposite, instead actively courting fandom via Twitter and blogs. I think this actively hurt the show, as there've been latter day developments that seem to play to an in-crowd of viewers. Just my impression. But the ratings are indicative of trends in the mass audience. Whe ratings start to go down, I think a sensible team looks for the reasons why. The ratings started to go down in S4, but the PTB always seemed to pooh-pooh it.

I wouldn't hesitate to guess that there is a buffer between the creators and the fans. Twitter, for instance, gives the illusion of intimacy. But for the most part, I believe the tweets are written by assistants, or in some cases, dictated to them.

Forgive me, for this isn't related to the House PTB, but it's a fantastic look behind the scenes of making a TV season on network TV, and worth reading for anyone who's wondered how the process works. Dan Harmon, the creator/writer/showrunner of the NBC series "Community" sat down and in an indepth four-part discussion with the AV Club on the process of creating each episode for the season. (Link is to the fourth part, which has links to the previous three parts.) He's pretty open about the process from: It probably started as something simple, like, “We haven’t done a Pierce story in a while.” Honestly, I have no idea, it’s just another one of these episodes where partway into it, I start going, “What are we really doing?” And the goal becomes to just get through it. to discussing how he was in tears after a "notes" meeting with network suits about the "Dungeons & Dragons" episode. I took a photo of it, so I could show it to them between seasons, because as I told my girlfriend when I got home, “I think I’m going to have to quit my own show, because I can’t operate under these circumstances. I can’t be this proud of something that the people paying me to do it are this ashamed of. It will never work. We’ll never achieve anything. It’ll never connect.” Obviously, "Community" is a very different beast, but I think it would be hard to find a more thorough discussion like this out there.

The Hollywood Reporter has its roundtable discussion with drama series showrunners up. No "House" people in the discussion, but many topics that have been discussed here -- with the "Mad Men" behind-the-scenes negotiations between the various companies at the start (similar to what was happening this spring on "House").

Thanks, Namaste. The video just confirms a lot of the behind-the-scenes realities that showrunners, writers, production companies and networks, etc. face when working to get a TV show on the air.

It occurs to me, I might just be oblivious (I tend to hang out here and nowhere else), but I haven't heard Katie Jacobs' name in ages. Is she working on the show this year?

You know, I wondered that too. The only thing I recall is last season, hearing that she was putting together a project with Amber Tamblyn, but haven't heard anything about that in ages.

Yes, I also wondered about KJ. She has definitely been MIA so far.

It seems that she's been directing a movie this summer. Katie Jacobs To Direct Photographer’s Memoir ‘Double Take’ With Groundswell Productions Kevin Michael Connolly's homepage I read an article sometime ago, that says there're not enough women directors on American TV, and I thought, maybe true, but there's Katie Jacobs on House and she's good. I miss her, if she's really gone.

Interesting. Thanks for finding that. Directors, of course, are involved every step of the way, but if it just went out to writers in July, it's probably not shooting until next summer. She could still be working with the show, but I did notice that she didn't do any of the commentaries on the S7 DVDs. I didn't like her early on when she was in her fangirl stage (that's our job -- you be the professional.) But once she got past that, she grew on me. And she definitely developed as a director.

Speaking of Twitter, I wonder if the show runners having Twitter accounts and speaking directly to fans is mandatory from the higher ups or not. I'm sure there's some pressure to promote shows on the internet thanks to Facebook and Twitter and all the other huge sites. Perhaps it's somewhat required to speak to fans online, which sadly tends to do more harm than good.

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