10/13/10
So, back in the My Generation offices this week. We’ve been given the greenlight by ABC Studio to complete the 8 episodes we’ve shot, which means we have to finish editing, complete VFX, score, mix and master the shows. Given the tightness of the network TV production schedule, we we’re doing our sound mix on episode 103 (to air the following week) the day the show was cancelled. So we have 5 episodes left to complete.
And it’s odd. It’s odd being back in the (now mostly empty) office. It’s odd revisiting this great television experiment — which is how I always saw the show — and fine tuning these raw, funny, moving episodes, for — what? Another network? DVD? The Web?
Before we made the pilot of My Generation (then called Generation Y) I joked to Steve McPherson (then the president of ABC) that I had a modest goal. I just wanted to reinvent television. To this end I was taking a classic television soap and deconstructing it. My plan was to use the documentary format to unravel my characters, to follow them through their lives, investigate their secrets, to strip them bare for both dramatic and comedic purposes. And because none of us live in a vacuum, I also wanted to tie these fictional characters and their Television world to the real world — real events, real history — in order to blur the line between fact and fiction.
My goal was to make a TV show for the internet era — to create a mash up of scripted material, real news and cultural footage, to repurpose existing content (by placing a fictional character on season 2 of The Bachelor, for example, or using scenes from the Lost finale to tie my characters to a time and place). I wanted to create something progressive, something modern. While, at the same time, telling fun, relatable, heartfelt stories about the lives we live today.
I tried to use music in a new way, bringing real bands onto the show to be produced by The Falcon, our fictional music producer — which we did with the awesome band Good Old War in a 3 day, 100% improvised set of scenes that we set in and around a recording studio. Good Old War wrote an amazing song for the show, that we filmed them arranging and recording, which we planned to launch as a single off of the episodes. The band’s scenes can be found in episodes 106, 108 (and would have completed in 109).
And this was just the start.
The day the show was cancelled we were close to finalizing a deal with the NFL and the Houston Texans to have a character (Rolly, “The Jock,” who had spent the last 8 years as a soldier in Afghanistan) try out for the team. In early November we would have gone to Houston, and put Rolly through the combines, the speed trials, the drills, the scrimmage games. We would have shot his journey, as we had the band’s material, with some scripted scenes, but also with a large degree of improvisation, using real personnel from the team.
This was a documentary, after all. Authenticity was our primary concern.
Which is why we cast real Army veterans to play the soldier’s in Rolly’s squad. We brought in ten young men who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some (like our military advisor Brett Aycock) had been wounded in battle. A lot of the “day in the life” scenes from the camp were improvised, or at least informed by real stories. The veterans — mostly non-actors — gave performances that were funny and moving and true. In addition to their scenes, we interviewed all the vets on camera about their real experiences — joining the army, their time in the service, and what it was like to come home. This footage found it’s way into episodes 104 and 106. We used it to highlight the journey that Rolly was taking, to contextualize his experiences.
There is a power to this, to mixing these real stories in with our scripted material. And I haven’t even mentioned the hours of “home video” we shot — births, childhood birthday parties, weddings, funerals — home movies that saw our characters grow from infancy to adulthood, home movies we combined with our scripted material in an attempt to create a seamless record of nine human lives.
This is why I call My Generation my great television experiment. At the end of the day I wanted people to turn on their TVs and see — themselves. Their lives. Their world.
Because here’s the thing: It’s 2010. Television is over. The ratings are plummeting. The old paradigm is dead. People have hundreds of choices. They are consuming media in countless different ways. I’ve heard that the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If television is going to prosper it needs to find a new paradigm. It’s time for television networks to become social networks.
That’s my opinion, anyway.
So, I’m back in the office, finishing 8 amazing episodes of this great experiment. Soon they will be mixed and mastered. I hope one day you get to see them.
