1
Television Writing and the Screen
Idea System
Introduction
Where do ideas for television series come from? How do writers,
producers and broadcasters settle on the ideas to pursue and what are
the stages and challenges in developing ideas into series for the screen?
One would think that questions like these about the choices of practitioners
and the nature of production were central to film and media
studies, yet limited attention has been given to the creative process of
developing and producing new works of fiction, let alone to the study
of these in television.
One method that can prove useful for addressing such questions
is, I argue, a Screen Idea System framework. This chapter introduces
the Screen Idea System framework for the book, which builds on an
understanding of the writing and production of television as a complex
interplay between individuals, a domain and a field. The book links theories
from film and media studies, approaches from the emerging area
of screenwriting research, with concepts and models from the field of
creativity research, insisting that one always needs to take what could
be called ‘the many P’s in production’ into account when analysing the
emergence of new scripted series. Creativity scholars argue that when
trying to understand the nature of creative work one has to include the
Process, the Product and the Press and the understanding of the Person,
with ‘Press’ referring to the environment in which the creative work
takes place. This is the so-called ‘four Ps’ of creativity (see, e.g. Rhodes
1961; Mooney 1963).
Approaching the writing and production of television drama from this
perspective, the chapter addresses how to understand this interplay as a
system where individuals with a specific talent, training and track record
20
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
Television Writing and the Screen Idea System 21
propose new screen ideas as variations on the existing trends, tastes and
traditions in a domain, which then have to be regarded as being of high
quality and appropriate in order to be accepted by gatekeepers with a
specific mandate for production. A special focus of this chapter is the
collaborative processes of television writing, analysed as the work of
‘thought communities’ who go through different stages in a problemfinding
and problem-solving effort when moving from an original idea
to a final product.
Studying television writing and production
While film and media studies do not have a tradition of extensive case
studies of the nature of creative work, other fields of scholarship have
taken a greater interest in the nature of artistic and cultural production.
Sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and Howard Becker have written extensively
on the field of cultural production and on art as collective action
or ‘art worlds’ (e.g. Bourdieu 1993, 1996; Becker 1974, 1982). Sociologist
Leo Rosten and anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker were among
the first to conduct production-oriented studies of the American film
industry (Rosten 1941; Powdermaker 1950).
More recently, studies coming from a ‘production of culture’ perspective
have focused on how creative work in the cultural industries is the
result of complex patterns and collaborations rather than a clear result of
one person’s vision (e.g. Peterson and Anand 2004), and this collective
perception of cultural production also marks other cross-disciplinary
publications and current studies of the nature of work life in the creative
or cultural industries (e.g. Negus and Pickering 2004; Deuze 2007, 2010;
Hesmondhalgh 2007; Hesmondhalgh and Baker 2010). These scholars
are not alone. Coming from organizational studies, researchers like Paul
DiMaggio and Paul M. Hirsch (e.g. DiMaggio and Hirsch 1976; DiMaggio
1977) have been investigating the structures in the cultural industries
for quite some time, while others have been looking more specifically
at film and media production, for instance, Helen Blair analysing work
conditions in the film industry (Blair 2001, 2003).
Whereas the collective nature of most cultural production and
the work processes in different cultural industries have interested
researchers for a number of years, few studies combine this interest with
the development of a specific product or the nature of the product itself.
As noted in a sociological study of different processes of art making
‘from start to finish’ there has, for instance, always been ‘a blind spot
in the sociology of art: any discussion of specific art works’ (Becker et al.
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
22 Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark
2006, 1). While the humanities tend to emphasize the text over practice,
the social sciences tend not to include the text, or the product, in the
analysis. There are exceptions, and some media industry research has
addressed questions about the impact of particular modes of production
on what is actually produced, for example, David Bordwell, Janet Staiger
and Kristin Thompson’s seminal study The Classical Hollywood Cinema
on the organizational conditions as well as the stylistic and storytelling
structures in Hollywood until 1960 (Bordwell et al. 1985). Studies like
Thompson’s Storytelling in the New Hollywood (1999) or Bordwell’s The
Way Hollywood Tells It (2006) have constructively argued how particular
modes of production influence storytelling strategies with much more
detail on particular products than will be offered here. This book does
take an interest in the development of specific series, but the product as
such is not thoroughly investigated for formal-aesthetic qualities.
The focus of this book is on a certain mode of writing and producing
television drama. Building on the work of previous scholars, the goal
is to provide more detailed analysis of the actual writing and production
process, emphasizing the value of production analysis of creative
collaborations to further understandings of how new television works
come into being. Production analysis can take many forms and range
from macro to micro levels, from political economy to professional routines
(Newcomb and Lotz 2002). Most production analysis operates with
several levels of analysis simultaneously to capture the complexity of
the production process. Specific case studies are often central to the
analysis, as Horace Newcomb has discussed (1991) comparing three classic
examples of television case study research with different approaches
(Cantor 1971; Elliott 1972; Gitlin 1983). Questions regarding the degree
of creative freedom and the organizational and financial framework are
central in all of these three classic studies, as is the case in more recent
research (e.g. Levine 2001; Lotz 2004). As Newcomb has noted, the driving
question in most production studies, then as now, is to make sense
of the cultural industries with the many problems related to ‘creativity
and constraint in industrial settings’ (2007, 129).
Most studies of film and media production are reconstructions of past
events based on interviews and document analysis rather than observations
or conversations during productions. An example is film scholar
Robert L. Carringer’s book The Making of Citizen Kane (1996), which
among other things explores the complicated relationship between
the young Orson Welles and the experienced screenwriter Herman
J. Mankiewicz, leading to Mankiewicz not receiving a credit on the
film until The Writers Guild looked at the matter. Much can be learned
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
Television Writing and the Screen Idea System 23
from this kind of retrospective data gathering, but it is hard to gain a
nuanced understanding of the specific nature of the creative collaborations
and processes from this approach. Behind-the-scenes publications
on legendary productions can offer insights, like Steven Bach’s account
of his time as a producer with United Artists during the making of the
famous failure Heaven’s Gate (1980) (Bach 1985), but books like these
are of course written from an insider’s perspective. They offer back story
details from the process of production, but without academic analysis
to nuance the understanding of choices and events.1
The complexity of studying production leads Newcomb to argue for
what he terms ‘synthetic media industry research’, comparing media
work to a dance, where one has to focus on ‘movement, fluidity, and
choices, both strategic and tactical, in any situation’, since the processes
are marked by ‘constantly shifting involvement and engagement
of individuals and groups who are always exceptionally aware of both
the structures in which they work and the degrees of agency they hold’
(Newcomb 2009, 269). The question is, of course, how to study this
kind of fluid process, where practitioners make choices based on their
assessment of many different parameters in specific situations. This book
follows researchers such as Robert E. Stake, who has emphasized the
value of specificity and particularity when doing qualitative case studies
in natural settings (2000, 2005) and when trying to interpret what is
sometimes described as ‘meaning in action’ (Jensen 2002, 236). A fundamental
challenge is how to design a research framework suited to break
down the complex processes, when practitioners are choosing special
paths and not others for the projects at hand.
Production as problem finding and problem solving
One way forward can be found in the work of David Bordwell, who
has insisted on not forgetting the social practice and individual choices
related to film and media production. Together with Noël Carroll, he
has proposed a problem-driven, ‘middle range’ approach to film scholarship,
where one defines a problem within the domain of cinema
non-dogmatically and sets out to solve it ‘through logical reflection,
empirical research, or a combination of both’ (Bordwell and Carroll
1996, xiv). As John Thornton Caldwell has argued, one can regard this
approach as ‘workmanlike, specific, delimited, and local’, drawing on a
pragmatic and process-driven perspective (2008, 25).
Bordwell has suggested that a fruitful strategy for conducting this kind
of scholarship is to focus on the many choices by practitioners in the
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
24 Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark
process through a problem/solution frame of inquiry ‘granting a role to
the artist’s grasp of the task and of her own talents as well as to the
possibility of errors, accidents (happy or unhappy), unintended consequences,
spontaneous and undeliberated actions, and decisions made
for reasons not wholly evident to the agents’ (1997, 150). Bordwell
places special focus on the decision-making processes of film and media
practitioners, along with the idea that decisions are made in social situations
with specific demands. As he points out: ‘The artist’s choices
are informed and constrained by the rules and roles of artmaking. The
artistic institution formulates tasks, puts problems on the agenda, and
rewards effective solutions’ (1997, 151). Furthermore, he discusses how
artists draw on traditions and certain norms in their present time as the
starting point for creating something new.
Bordwell’s problem/solution framework of inquiry shares many
similarities with influential theories from the field of creativity
research. Cognitive studies of creativity have often regarded creative
work as a form of problem solving. A problem can be defined as ‘a situation
with a goal and a hindrance’ (Runco 2007, 14). If one has a clear
cut problem, one can move on to problem solving immediately, but
in many artistic processes choosing the problem to actually solve will
often be central to the process. What painting should one paint? What
film should one make? As the American philosopher John Dewey has
famously stated, ‘a problem well put is half solved’ (Dewey in Campbell
1995, 48). A number of creativity scholars have focused on problem finding
in artistic processes to investigate why and how an artist decides
to focus on one problem and not another (e.g. Csikszentmihalyi and
Getzels 1976). The studies highlight the importance of the often underestimated
phase of defining what problem to actually solve, which in
the context of this book can be regarded as the important stage of conceptualizing
what series to write and how to go about it before the actual
execution of the plans.
Scholars coming from the school of Creative Problem Solving (CPS)
have offered numerous models for how to understand creative processes
in an attempt to clarify the movement from the mess-finding,
data-finding and problem-finding stages of defining a problem through
the idea finding to the solution and acceptance-finding stages of a
task at hand.2
I have previously used models from CPS (Isaksen and
Treffinger 2004) to break down the stages of development, writing
and production in feature filmmaking when doing detailed production
studies of the nature of each stage and exploring what makes
the diverging ideas of each stage converge and move on to the next
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
Television Writing and the Screen Idea System 25
stage (Redvall 2009, 2010a). The case studies of this book are not
structured around the stages outlined by CPS, but aspects of CPS are
referred to, when for instance analysing the amount of time spent in
the early stages of a problem-finding effort during research and development
or differences in the approach of writers and producers as to
when they expect solution finding and acceptance finding in terms of
a script.
From the problem/solution framework suggested by Bordwell and
ideas of creative processes from CPS, one can derive a picture of
television production as marked by individuals making choices in a collaborative
work process; choices that are marked by the works already
produced as well as by the different types of constraints surrounding
the process. This approach insists on the ever-present importance
of the social as well as institutional context when dealing with creative
work.
Studying creativity in context
Most definitions of creativity focus on the ability to produce something
that is new (e.g. original, unexpected) and is of a high quality and appropriate
(e.g. meets task restraints) (e.g. Weisberg 1993; Sternberg and
Lubart 1999). The concepts of ‘novelty’ and ‘value’ are thus central to
this understanding of creativity (Mayer 1999, 449). Whether something
has value or not is in many definitions linked to the outside recognition
of the work produced and thinking about the relationship between
issues of novelty, quality and appropriateness is useful for analysing
the negotiations of what one intends to produce in a film and media
context.
Early understandings of artists and their processes were based on mystical
or religious explanatory frameworks with creative individuals often
being regarded as geniuses (Sternberg and Lubart 1999, 5). Either you
were blessed with the gift of creativity or you weren’t. The 1920s saw a
shift from discussing the idea of the genius towards discussions of different
degrees of giftedness in the attempt to study whether one could
find specific personal traits or patterns of thought in especially talented
or intelligent people (Ryhammar and Brolin 1999, 261). The research of
the psychologist J. P. Guilford is normally defined as the starting point
for the scholarly field of creativity research (e.g. Sternberg 1999). His
approach was to study whether specific personal traits characterize creative
individuals. This psychometric perspective and the focus on the
individual and cognitive aspects of creativity were dominant until the
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
26 Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark
1980s, when both a social-psychological and a systems approach of creativity
emerged, often termed ‘confluence approaches’ (Sternberg and
Lubart 1999, 10).
The work of the Hungarian/American psychologist Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi embodies this move towards including contextual elements
in the understanding of creativity. His systems view of creativity
is based on the conviction that creativity cannot be studied by isolating
individuals and their work from the social and historical surroundings.
Explaining the emergence of his so-called ‘systems model’ of creativity,
Csikszentmihalyi has described how his early research focused on individual
thought, emotions and motivations. Gradually, the task became
more frustrating since it turned out to be to explain particular aspects of
his data. As an example, he mentions how one of his studies concluded
that the female students in an art school showed the same creative
potential as their male colleagues. However, 20 years later none of the
women had earned the recognition as outstanding artist to the same
degree as their male counterparts (1999, 313).
Observations like these prompted him to design a systems model for
creativity, building on the notion that creativity is never the result of
individual actions alone, but:
the product of three main shaping forces: a set of social institutions,
or field, that selects from the variations produced by individuals those
that are worth preserving; a stable cultural domain that will preserve
and transmit the selected new ideas of forms to the following generations;
and finally the individual, who brings about some change in
the domain, a change that the field will consider to be creative.
(Csikszentmihalyi 1988, 325)
According to Csikszentmihalyi, creativity is thus the result of an
interplay between these three forces, which he visualizes as follows
(Figure 1.1).
The domain is to be understood as a formal system of symbols based
on information that can be regarded as ‘a set of rules, procedures
and instructions for actions’ (Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi 2004,
33). If one does not have access to the information within a certain
domain, one is unable to contribute with new knowledge. As an example,
Csikszentmihalyi mentions the difficulty of composing a symphony
with no prior knowledge of music or of being acknowledged as a gifted
mandarin chef without knowing anything about the Chinese cuisine
(1988, 330). Some domains have a structure, which makes them hard to
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
Television Writing and the Screen Idea System 27
Produces
novelty
Selects
novelty
Transmits
information
Domain
Culture
Personal
backgroundSociety
Stimulates
novelty
IndividualField
Figure 1.1 The systems model by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi3
enter and renew, while others are more accessible. Within the domain
of film and media production, there are, for instance, particular understandings
of best practice, such as classical storytelling strategies, which
one will be measured against when proposing a new variation. Moreover,
existing works within the domain shape the understanding of
quality among the individuals wanting to create new variations as well
as among the experts assessing their value.
The field is the social aspect of the model and encompasses the
individuals who function as gatekeepers by deciding whether a new
idea or a product should be included in the domain (1999, 315). In a
screenwriting or television drama context, screenwriting and production
teachers, critics, journal editors, script editors, commissioners or
network executives are examples of people in key positions, enabling
them to choose which works deserve to be produced or recognized,
broadcast and remembered. The individual is the third element in the
system. According to Csikszentmihalyi, one can speak of creativity when
a person uses the symbols in a specific domain, gets an idea, sees a
new pattern or creates something new, which by the appropriate field
is found worthy of being in the relevant domain. Based on this systems
approach, he defines creativity as ‘any act, idea, or product that
changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
28 Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark
into a new one. And the definition of a creative person is: someone
whose thoughts or actions change a domain or establish a new domain’
(1988, 28). In relation to this definition, Csikszentmihalyi stresses that
it is impossible to change a domain without the explicit or implicit
consent of the field responsible for it, and the experts thus hold great
power in terms of selecting certain examples of novelty at the expense
of others.
This approach to creativity shifts the focus from the traits of the creative
individual towards a broader understanding of creative work. As
Csikszentmihalyi notes, whether one’s work is recognized is not only
related to talent or giftedness but also to ‘chance, perseverance, or being
at the right place at the right time’ (1988, 29). Personal traits are relevant,
but since creativity is based on the interaction of person, domain
and field, there is much more to creating a novelty with an impact
on the domain. Csikszentmihalyi has compared his model to classical
models of evolutionary processes, where evolution occurs when
an individual organism produces a variation, which is chosen by the
environment and carried on to the next generation (1999, 316). He suggests
that this process of mutation, selection and transmission can be
regarded as a form of creative evolution.
According to Csikszentmihalyi, the systems model can be useful for
trying to answer questions about whether a society generally values
and encourages creativity, whether there is a social and economic openness
towards change, as well as the degree of mobility or complexity
(1999, 322). Issues like these bring studies to the macro level of analysis,
and as a psychologist, Csikszentmihalyi also raises quite detailed issues
related to the background and personality of individuals. As with most
conceptual models, the systems model naturally gives rise to debates
about particular elements, such as whether it is constructive to, for
instance, separate individuals and their personal background from society
as such. However, the model’s overall framework for thinking about
creativity and creative processes as happening between different shaping
forces is a useful way of outlining the complexity of most film and
media production, which can thus be regarded as a complex interplay
of the talent producing new series; of the conceptions of best practice in
the domain of television drama; and of the experts or institutions with
the power to select which ideas should be given the opportunity to move
from pitch to production. Based on the structure and the basic understandings
of the systems model, this book thus proposes a Screen Idea
System for how to approach the writing and production of television
drama.
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
Television Writing and the Screen Idea System 29
The Screen Idea System framework
The Screen Idea System is an attempt to bridge ideas from media industry
and screenwriting studies with the more process-oriented conceptions
of creative work from the field of creativity studies, emphasizing
how things happen in a constant and dynamic interplay between different
forces on several levels. The Screen Idea System is thus the
conceptual model behind the structure of this book, which starts by
discussing larger issues related to studying series from one particular
broadcaster (DR) (Chapter 2), the development of particular managerial
‘dogmas’ for production (Chapter 3) and the training of talent from
one particular film school, The National Film School of Denmark (NFSD)
(Chapter 4), before moving into case studies of how this framework of a
specific production culture is crucial to include in the understanding of
the work of practitioners within DR as well as of the nature of the series
produced.
Timothy Havens and Amanda D. Lotz have recently proposed ‘The
Industrialization of Culture Framework’ for explaining the operation
of media industries (2012). Their framework constructively emphasizes
how one always has to take the social trends, tastes and traditions in
a specific culture as well as the mandate of a specific media institution
(for instance commercial vs non-commercial mandates) into account
when analysing the conditions for media industries (such as technology,
regulation or economics), the day-to-day practices of organizations and
individuals, the texts produced and the meeting between the public and
the texts (2012, 4–5). The framework thus stresses the importance of the
different contexts surrounding all media production, leading to discussions
of the work of practitioners as different degrees of circumscribed
agency (2012, 15). In this framework, three main forces are considered
to be moulding the work of individuals into ‘socially sanctioned
forms’, namely ‘the general culture itself, formal and informal professional
expectations, and specific organizational practices and norms’
(2012, 15). The framework by Havens and Lotz points to the vastness of
trying to understand the complexities of media industries with the work
of, for instance, screenwriters as but one tiny element in an enormous
machinery.
The Screen Idea System shares the industrialization of culture framework’s
interest in the forces that shape the work of individuals, but
singles out the importance of individuals in this process, arguing that
the writing and production of television drama starts and ends with
a screen idea. Similar to how Csikszentmihalyi insists that creativity
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
30 Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark
does not exist in a vacuum (1999, 315), a screen idea does not come
out of nowhere. It builds on or rebels against notions of best practice
for screenwriting and on the existing tastes, trends and traditions for
television drama in the domain. Moreover, ideas are shaped by meeting
the field where institutions have a specific mandate for production
and a management looking for particular kinds of product, and where
money for financing the development, writing and production of new
variations is always an issue.
In the field of screenwriting research, the idea of understanding the
process of screenwriting as structured around a screen idea comes out
of the work of Ian Macdonald (e.g. 2003, 2004, 2012). Building on a
term used by Philip Parker to describe the start of a script’s development
(1998, 57), Macdonald has outlined how to think of a screen idea as ‘the
core idea of anything intended to become a screenwork, that is “any
notion of a potential screenwork held by one or more people. Whether
it is possible to describe it on paper or by other means” ’ (2012, 113).
This definition highlights how ideas exist before ‘pen is set to paper’,
and how development of ideas is based on what Macdonald describes
as ‘the norms of the screen industries’ (2012, 113). The context of the
screen idea is given great importance, and Macdonald has studied how
certain notions of quality are used when assessing screen ideas, pointing
to ‘realisability, an appropriate structure, a clear thesis and some aspect
of originality’ as four common goals (2012, 113). These goals share similarities
with the previously mentioned definitions of creativity focusing
on quality, originality and appropriateness, but also point to the importance
of what in the DR Fiction framework is often discussed as a clear
‘premise’ rather than ‘thesis’.4
Based on the concept of the screen idea, Macdonald has pioneered
the idea of the Screen Idea Work Group, emphasizing how screen ideas
are developed in flexibly constructed groups organized around specific
projects (2010). The Screen Idea System is an attempt to encompass how
these work groups, consisting of individuals with special talent, training
and track record propose new, original variations in a constant interplay
with the ideas of quality and appropriateness in the domain and the
field (Figure 1.2).
Mirroring the structure of the systems model, the Screen Idea System
proposes a dynamic understanding of the processes where the existing
knowledge in the domain informs the choices of individuals as well
as the conceptions of quality when the field assesses suggested new
variations. If found to be original, of high quality and appropriate by
the field, the ideas of individuals can be produced and acknowledged
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
Television Writing and the Screen Idea System 31
Produces
novelty
Selects
novelty
Transmits
information
DOMAIN
Tastes
Trends
Traditions
Talent
Training
Track record
Mandate
Management
Money Stimulates
novelty
INDIVIDUALFIELD
Figure 1.2 The Screen Idea System
as creative, and thus end up being included as new variations in the
domain. However, the field not only has a gatekeeping function but can
also have a positive impact on individuals by creating a framework that
stimulates novelty.
Translated to the topic of this book, one can approach the writing
and production of television drama in Denmark as a system where writers
with an individual talent, training and track record propose ideas
for potential TV series. These ideas build on the trends, tastes and traditions
in the domain and have to find acceptance by the experts in
the field, where projects are assessed based on the mandate, management
and money of the institution involved. In this book, series are thus
proposed to an institution with a non-commercial, public service mandate,
with a management having certain ‘dogmas’ for production and
with a budget for producing only a few high-profile drama series every
year. Most individuals have trained at the same institution, the NFSD,
which has focused still more on teaching not only screenwriting for film
but also television writing since the 2000s. These individuals have been
encouraged to develop original ideas for series, and rather than focusing
on the existing traditions in the national realm, they seem to have
been drawing still more on their personal tastes and the latest trends in
international quality television.
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
32 Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark
As will be addressed in later chapters, what one can call the domain
of Danish television series has changed dramatically since the late 1990s
with a new kind of product finding both national and international
acclaim. This change is of course related to the ideas of certain writers,
but it is also highly influenced by new approaches to scripted fiction
within DR as well as by developments on the international television
scene. This book deals with a number of aspects related to this complicated
interplay, based on an understanding that the emergence of an
impressive streak of successful series from DR has to do with a number
of elements, which have to be addressed from different perspectives. The
Screen Idea System is helpful in visualizing this interplay and in emphasizing
how the emergence of new television series is based on highly
collaborative and contextual processes.
Issues of authorship: Auteurs, authors and visions
One of the consequences of approaching television writing as a highly
collaborative endeavour is the blurring of traditional conceptions of
individual authorship. However, a major change in the approach to
television writing and production at DR since the 1990s has been the
emergence of the concept of ‘one vision’, singling out the creator of the
series as the person with the guiding vision for a project all the way
through production. This concept of one vision is addressed in all chapters
of this book, and it is thus worthwhile to briefly introduce particular
ideas of creative collaborations and processes as the basis for further
discussions of individual vs collective authorship.
As Steven Maras has noted in relation to the auteur theory coming
out of France in the 1950s and 1960s, few topics provoke ‘as much emotion
in screenwriting discourse’ (2009, 97). The explanation for this is
that many interpretations of the auteur theory have emphasized the
importance of the director at the expense of the screenwriter. Consequently,
the screenwriter has tended to be marginalized, both in the
film and media industry and in academic scholarship. Some have fought
this, like film critic Richard Corliss formulating a ‘Screenwriter’s Theory’
on ‘author-auteurs’ (1974) as a response to Andrew Sarris translating
the thoughts behind la politique des auteurs (Sarris 1962) and publishing
an ‘auteur-bible’ (1968).5
The focus on the director and on individual
authorship is still prevalent in some film scholarship, even though a
film scholar like John Caughie, writing about recent theoretical developments,
has found that ‘ “the delirium of auteurism” has been sanitized
by common sense’ (2008, 408), and there generally seems to be more
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
Television Writing and the Screen Idea System 33
discussions about the potential pitfalls of auteurism such as the risk
of not acknowledging the complex work flows of art as collaboratively
produced (e.g. Aitken 2008, 36; Schatz 2009, 50).
Television studies has in many ways been trying to position itself
against the auteurist discussions of film studies (Kraszewski 2011, 168).
Similarly, most discussions of media industry studies challenge ideas
of individual authorship when arguing that industrial production and
patterns of mass production is based on a group effort (e.g. Holt and
Perren 2009; Havens and Lotz 2012). Based on extensive criticism of
the traditional notion of singular authorship, television and media
industry scholar Michelle Hilmes has acknowledged that there can be
some advantages in singling out an individual, but this approach often
works against understanding the complexity and interdependence of
the process (2009, 26). She finds that instead of letting the focus on
one individual distort the realities of media authorship, one should
foreground the problems related to this and ‘bring the struggle into productive
analysis’ (2009, 26). One of the intentions of this book is exactly
to foreground this complex interplay of many different collaborators
and workflows to create a nuanced sense of how to think of authorship
and agency in relation to television series coming from DR with a one
vision brand.
Several scholars have argued that one needs to know more about the
actual making of media works if one wants to constructively address
issues of their authorship (e.g. Tybjerg 2005; Schepelern 2005; Gray and
Johnson 2013). One can’t merely look at their list of credits. Coming
from a philosophy of art perspective, Paisley Livingston and Berys Gaut
have constructively been writing about different types of authorship
related to questions of creativity and intentionality during the process
of creation (e.g. Gaut 1997; Gaut and Livingston 2003; Livingston 1997,
2007). There are now several theories challenging the notion of singular
authorship with ideas of for instance ‘multiple authorship’ (Gaut
1997), ‘collaboration analysis’ (Carringer 2001), ‘collective authorship’
(Sellors 2007) or ‘joint authorship’ (Livingston 2009). The issue of ‘sufficient
control’ (Gaut 2010; Livingston 2009) will be raised in Chapter 5
when analysing how to think of the concept of one vision in the DR
production framework in relation to the role of the showrunner in the
US television industry.
‘Why should one care?’ one could argue, since it can seem like
an overly academic exercise to debate delicate aspects of authorship,
but issues like these also have implications for the world outside of
academia. In screenwriting, issues of credits and copyright are central
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
34 Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark
and they are often related to conceptions of who contributed to what
extent and who can be regarded as having a major impact on the work
produced. In the DR context, the idea of one vision can sound like a
way of treating the creator of a series like an almighty auteur with complete
creative control. It is worthwhile studying how this idea of one
vision functions in the everyday work of writing and producing television.
This is not a minor matter, as the concept of one vision has
turned out to be quite influential in recent industry debates where for
instance the Norwegian television industry has had fierce discussions
about the lack of one vision in relation to the national production
and has debated suggestions of copying what is perceived as successful
work methods from the Danish framework (e.g. Iversen 2010; Kåset and
Ødegårdstuen 2010). As argued by former Head of Drama at DR, director
and screenwriter Rumle Hammerich, one can’t import a concept without
knowing its actual meaning (Hammerich 2010), and concepts on
paper can take on very different forms in practice. Studies of concrete
production processes thus not only furthers current academic debates
about screenwriting, authorship, creativity and media production, but
also allows for a better understanding of the actual proceedings, which
ought to be of value to practitioners in the industry.
Theorizing collaboration
Collaboration permeates production, but it is a somewhat neglected
area. Analyses of production often stress the impact of different types of
constraints, but production processes are also marked by enabling elements
and collaborations, which further the work of individuals. Based
on the Screen Idea System as the overall framework for understanding
the processes at hand, a crucial question is, of course, how to then study
television writing and production and how to embrace constraints as
well as collaborations along the way. This book has found inspiration in
other writings on specific creative collaborations and on different stages
when approaching the task of creating a new product. Studies of group
theory and group skills often highlight that mutual goals, social interdependence
and trust are important in group interaction (e.g. Johnson
and Johnson 2006, 66–68), as are aspects of having differentiated roles
and integrated norms (2006, 15). As already described, not only film and
media studies but also creativity studies tended to focus on the individual
for quite some time, but the past ten years have seen more studies
of collective creative work (e.g. Paulus and Nijstad 2003) as well as
bestsellers on the strength of creative collaboration (Sawyer 2008).
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
Television Writing and the Screen Idea System 35
Whereas Ian Macdonald’s concept of the Screen Idea Work Group is
one way to think of the creative collaborations around potential moving
image narratives, another fruitful way to think of production as
a collective endeavour is to approach these collaborations as different
kinds of what Vera John-Steiner has called ‘thought communities’. JohnSteiner
developed the idea of thought communities based on studies of
remarkable intellectual and artistic collaborations, where she found that
‘generative ideas emerge from joint thinking, from significant conversations,
and from sustained, shared struggles to achieve new insights
by partners in thought’ (2000, 3). Based on the Russian psychologist
Lev Vygotsky’s theories, John-Steiner stresses the importance of a
dynamic dependence of social and individual processes, leading to a
‘co-construction of knowledge, tools, and artifacts’ (2000, 5). Focusing
on issues of having a shared vision and aiming for shared growth, she
introduces four patterns of partnerships as different forms of thought
communities, which are defined as different from cooperating teams in
the way that ‘their members take emotional and intellectual risks to construct
mutuality and productive interdependence. Their objectives are to
develop a shared vision as well as achieve jointly negotiated outcomes’
(2000, 196). There is thus a sense of personal investment and risk-taking
involved in the work of thought communities.
John-Steiner’s four patterns of thought communities consist of the
distributed collaboration, the complementary collaboration, the family
collaboration and the integrative collaboration. Distributed collaboration
is common and involves everyday conversations in professional
contexts, for example, at conferences, in electronic exchanges or among
artists sharing a workspace. Participants are linked by shared interests,
but their roles are informal and voluntary (2000, 197–8). According
to John-Steiner the complementary collaboration is the most common
and is characterized by ‘a division of labor based on complementary
expertise, disciplinary knowledge, roles, and temperament. Participants
negotiate their roles and strive for a common vision’ (2000, 198). The
family collaboration is defined by a mode of interaction where roles are
flexible or can change over time, as when participants help each other
in changing roles from, for example, being a novice to a level of more
expertise (2000, 201). In family collaborations, participants are normally
linked to each other during a longer period of time.
A longitudinal collaboration is also central in the integrative collaboration,
which thrives on ‘dialogue, risk taking, and a shared vision.
In some cases, the participants construct a common set of beliefs, or ideology,
which sustains them in periods of opposition or insecurity’ (2000,
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.
36 Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark
203). According to John-Steiner integrative partnerships are motivated
‘by the desire to transform existing knowledge, thought styles, or artistic
approaches into new visions’ (2000, 203), and one of her main points
is that the integrative collaboration seems to be the best for the emergence
of new patterns of thought or new art forms. An explanation for
this is that it is hard to handle the burden of disciplinary and artistic
socialization on your own.
This approach to understanding creative collaborations is interesting
in relation to studying television writing and production, which
is normally a highly collaborative endeavour. There are few examples
of team writing in Danish feature filmmaking, but the nature of television
writing in the DR production framework has gradually become
to have head writers collaborating with episode writers on new series.
This kind of ‘writing by committee’ is often discussed in rather negative
terms (e.g. Caldwell 2008) and primarily understood in relation to
sheer logistics like the volume of what needs to be produced at a high
speed in the television context. However, it is also worthwhile to explore
the potential creative benefits of having this kind of dialogue between
writers about how to create a new work. The screenwriting collaborations
investigated in this book have thus been approached as different
kinds of thought communities with the Screen Idea System offering a
conceptual framework for understanding and analysing these kinds of
longitudinal, complex processes in relation to not only the individual
production processes but also to the crucial context.
Accordingly, the following chapters are structured to contribute with
insights on all the ‘P’s in production, but with a particular focus on the
work processes of screenwriters. Whereas the earlier chapters deal more
with the people and the press in a macro context (drawing on interviews
and document analysis as the main sources), later chapters focus more
on the production processes and the gradual development of the products
(drawing primarily on interviews and observational studies). Before
focusing on the current state of affairs, however, Chapter 2 provides a
crash course in Danish television drama, setting the scene in terms of
the traditions in the domain and of the particular mandate related to
producing public service television for a small nation market.
Novrup, Redvall, Eva. Writing and Producing Television Drama in Denmark : From the Kingdom to the Killing,
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1588808.
Created from kbdk on 2021-08-25 07:32:52.
Copyright©2013.PalgraveMacmillanUK.Allrightsreserved.