New Show Runners of America
I was a volunteer for an Organization called “Creative Action.” It was basically a very pricy summer babysitting service for well to do working parents. The staff ranged from skilled instructors with some production skills and others who were simply high paid babysitters. (To the tune the “non-profit business” raking in around Over 10 K a month.
The one valuable lesson for me was the teachers were actually training kids to be executive producers. Then I discover that networks called the job, “Showrunners.” The producer who holds ultimate management and creative authority for the program. A showrunner is “the person responsible for all creative aspects of the show and responsible only to the network (and production company, if it’s not their production company). The boss, usually a writer.”
I repeat, usually a writer.
Los Angeles Times columnist Scott Collins describes showrunners as: They hire and fire writers and crew members, develop story lines, write scripts, cast actors, mind budgets and run interference with studio and network bosses. It’s one of the most unusual and demanding, right-brain/left-brain job descriptions in the entertainment world….Showrunners make — and often create — the show and now more than ever, shows are the only things that matter. In the “long tail” entertainment economy, viewers don’t watch networks. They don’t even care about networks. They watch shows. And they don’t care how they get them.
The moniker showrunner was created to identify the producer who actually held ultimate management and creative authority for the program.
Often the showrunner is the creator or co-creator of the series, but they often move on and day-to-day responsibilities of the position fall to other writers or writing teams. Law & Order, ER, The Simpsons, The West Wing, Star Trek: The Next Generation, NYPD Blue, Supernatural and The Walking Dead are all examples of long-running shows that had successive, multiple showrunners.
Enter Comedy Gym and the three new classes; Acting Secrets Revealed, The Master of Ceremonies, and PEP, (The Perceptions Enhancement Project.)
