PRE-PRODUCTION; SHOWRUNNNER RESEARCH

The term show runner is a person who oversees the writing and production of each episode of a television series and has ultimate managerial and creative control over a series. Whilst we are creating a short film, I am the writer and producer of the film so I think it would be extremely beneficial for me to research a show runner and their methods of working, in order to aid me with my work. Firstly, I looked at an article that detailed what the roles of a show runner concern. These include:
-Amalgam of a creative job and a management job
-Most show runners start out as writers
-In charge of making the most of a budget, how to balance the amount of money that you have, the time you have to do it and making sure you get the best product that you can out of what you have available
-Making sure everyone feels valuable, they aren't dictators, they're curators, you have many creative people around you and you need to make sure they feel valuable and are being used in the production
-Show-runners help to protect the creative vision of a show, if monetary issues or logistical reasonings mean certain things can't happen and need to be changed, a show runner is the person who makes sure the shows vision is protected and remains the essence.
-Responsible for every aspect of a show

For me a show runner sounds very similar to someone who would be a writer and a producer, as I am the writer of the show I will be wanting to make sure the essence of the story is always thought of throughout, as well as organising the schedule and budget etc. The main different I see between a show runner and what I am doing on Unspoken, would be that I have a director on board who would have a greater influence over the creative decisions that go into producing a show. For example with cast, I will be facilitating the director in making sure they have choice and communication with potentials, allowing this director to choose the perfect cast.

I thought I would look more specifically at a show-runnner to see how they work. Greg Berlanti is a perfect choice for me to research because whilst the extent of his work is on television programmes, both producer and writing, there is also a lot of films that he has produced and written. Berlanti made his debut with a directorial effort, before moving into television as a writer and executive producer on Dawsons Creek in 2004. His career rocketed from there and he wrote/produced the Green Lantern in 2010, before moving onto a lot of CW based TV shows such as Riverdale and Supergirl in more recent times.

-His most recent film effort, Love Simon, was casted based on the chemistry between the cast members, as it was a film about a group of friends it was the chemistry between the actors that Berlanti used as his reasoning for casting.
-Focus on locations as a method to ease production, for example in his film Life as We Know It, he chose to film in Atlanta because it was one of the only places he could see a bit of each season, without it being too cold or too hot at any point of production
-In terms of his writing style, he likes to create notes and draft scenes which he then hands over to an official scriptwriter who would draft a screenplay
-Likes issues led stories
-Constantly fighting for change, but also striving to keep essences of scripts, keeping the basis of a script the same, always

Through my research of a show runner,  I feel the biggest thing I can take from this term is the knowledge to keep the essence of a story the same. As a show runner, you can kind of have conflicting interests because you could write something or come up with an idea that the budget or the schedule, which you are also in charge of, won't allow anymore. I think it is really important for me that throughout the script changes and story changes, the essence of the story I wanted to tell, is still there.