I find that on serialized television it's wiser to hit the ground and look forward, and take the cues from the writers and the events happening, otherwise you just tie yourself in knots.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I come from a theater background, so usually, at the start, you know what happens and where the character goes and everything. But with TV, it's really unpredictable.
Often in television, you read a script and you're amazed that you get the scene given to you.
In a play, you know where you start and end and all the stops you have to do, but in television, you can't construct this carefully planned out arc for your character. You often get a script and you're shooting it two days later, and you don't know what's going to happen next. It's one of the harder things that I've done.
Sometimes television can just jump from one bit of plot to the next, and the words fill in the in-between.
So much of television is incredibly predictable. You watch the first five minutes and you know where it's going to go. If you can just create an element of surprise in both the storytelling and tone of a show, you're going to be way ahead of the pack.
As a writer, you're really in control of almost everything. That's not the case in TV. You have to be prepared to work with a lot of people to make something happen, and you got to be prepared, at least in the beginning, to not be too good at your specific task.
There is a comfort zone of knowing where things are going and having characters in place, but the action gets more and more dramatic and is very challenging to describe.
I'm always interested in trying to stay on the cutting edge of television storytelling. To be slightly in front, pushing for the next new thing.
In TV, you don't know everything. The writers only give you scripts before you shoot the episodes. They keep you on your nerve.
The whole thing of doing a TV series, I find it very daunting not knowing where the story's going.
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