Hollywood production halted in March amid the rapidly escalating coronavirus pandemic. Gradually, the industry returned to production with big adjustments, including virtual writers’ rooms and tabletop readings and strict COVID security protocols on set. It wasn’t easy, prolific creator / showrunner Mike Schur told Rob Lowe of the actor. Literally Podcast.
“It’s really difficult; we’ve done that on a few shows I’m working on, ”said Schur, NBC’s co-creator / executive producer. Brooklyn Nine-Nine and forthcoming from Peacock Rutherford Falls and executive producer of the upcoming Netflix animated series Q-Force. “There is no substitute for everyone being in a room and talking. First of all, if there are more than six people on the Zoom call, half of them are just looking at their phones, but the whole creative process is too, you are trapped in a room and there is a sense, to get out of this room at the end of the day, we have to come up with some good ideas. It gives it that kind of boost and urgency that when you’re sitting at home, everyone in a little box on a computer screen, it’s not the same.
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Schur, creator of NBC’s The right place and co-creator of Parks and recreation, fears that the current changes related to Covid in the company are not lasting.
“Among other things that worry us – the big things, the things that really matter – when I think about what we do for a living in the future, I start to worry about the future of entertainment because I don’t know. not what it looks like, ”he said. “It’s hard to imagine being in a writers room, it’s hard to imagine being on a set, how to shoot a scene with 200 extras ever, how are you on location in someone’s house, who in his good spirit will let us enter their house to shoot a scene. It seems so crazy to imagine going back to the old ways of doing things. We will find something because we always do it. Hollywood has a knack for ingenuity, and there’s a long way to go with the other, bigger issues before we get to that, but I’m very nervous to figure out how that works after this is all over.
The production of television shows during the pandemic added hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of each episode. It has compounded the woes of media companies affected by the shutdowns of movie theaters, theme parks, cruises and other businesses. Schur is concerned that the financial blow of the pandemic on media giants could impact production budgets in the future.
“The fear is somehow the media companies that pay us lose billions of dollars a month,” he said. “The shows we do are expensive, they’re not little DYI shows, they cost millions of dollars per episode. It’s hard to imagine how they’re paying for them on the other side. Are they going to cut every staff in half, are they going to cut every casting in half, will they say, sorry this is the cap on what anybody can get paid, are they going to try to make film crews no assistants, will they try to say sorry, instead of two blunderers you get a blunderer. One way or another, every aspect of the business itself and also how the creative side is going to be different in some way or another, and I don’t know how that comes about. I think we’re a long way from anything that looks like normal, but even when we get there, I don’t know how you explain everything you need.
During the lengthy conversation, Lowe and Schur discuss how the television industry has adjusted after 9/11 by sharing their experiences of how the shows they worked on at the time, West wing and Saturday Night Live, respectively, reacted to the tragedy.
“The truth is, for normalcy to return, everything has to come back, everything we had before that must come back. And one of those things is we have to make movies and TV shows again, even if they smell bad, ”Schur said.
“It’s our stupid role in all of this.”
The interview includes a number of anecdotes from Parks and recreation, which Lowe co-starred.
Schur revealed how he and his co-creator Greg Daniels received an on-air 13-episode order for the show, with the pilot episode airing after the Super Bowl, associated with Office. But they wanted SNLAmy Poehler for the head, and she was about to give birth by the time the pilot was due to shoot. In order to have him for the show, Schur and Daniels, who worked together on Office, voluntarily cut the order from 13 to 6 episodes for a premiere three months later.
“We continued to think that making her post-Super Bowl debut is a short-term solution, bringing Amy Poehler on the show is the long-term solution,” Schur said.
For more behind-the-scenes stories on SNL and Parks and recreation, you can listen to the interview here.
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