Armchair Commentary

Amazon Pilots Inside Story: David Javerbaum ("The Daily Show") on "Browsers," Bebe Neuwirth, Music and More

When the characters in Browsers feel something, they don’t just say it. You don’t just see it. They sing it. They even dance it. And they do it with such wit – almost like an 11-time Emmy award-winning writer for The Daily Show is putting words in their mouth.

And one is: David Javerbaum. He’s actually got a dozen Emmys, having picked up one for the song “Broadway: It’s Not Just For Gays Anymore,” which so memorably opened the 65^th Tony Awards. And he’s also an author (The Last Testament: A Memoir By God; What to Expect When You’re Expected: A Fetus’ Guide to the First Three Trimesters).

Browsers, one of 14 Amazon original pilots now playing for free at Amazon Instant Video and LOVEFiLM,  is about four interns at Gush, a content-aggregating website (a la The Huffington Post or The Daily Beast) founded and run by the charismatic but mysterious Julianna Mancuso-Bruni (Bebe Neuwirth). “The show pokes fun at modern workplaces, the media, and more specifically Gush — starting with its penchant for deriving most of its content by cutting and pasting material from other websites,” Javerbaum said.

We asked Javerbaum about the setting of Browsers, the terrific cast, and the challenges of mixing comedy and music.

Why this world, why these characters?

I’ve long considered The Huffington Post the quintessential cultural artifact of our time in terms of what it covers, how it covers it, and why it remains popular. It literally provides a window into the state of the world, and so I thought setting a show there — and making the entirety of its universe fair game for our show — would provide an enormous amount of material.

As for the characters, as soon as I began formulating ideas for musical television shows, I knew I wanted the leads to be young people in their 20s, because that’s the age where you have the most energy, passion, uncertainty, and all that other good interesting quirky singable stuff. 

How does having music in the show adds to the experience/story?

The songs serve a different purpose here than they do in shows like Smash and Glee, not only because they are original, but because they are not “actually” happening. Rather, the songs are internal, taking place inside the character’s heads, meaning they are bound only by the laws of imagination and not by reality. 

Tell me about your awesome cast, and what they brought to the show.

Bebe Neuwirth (Julianna): The consummate professional. Hilarious on take one, still hilarious on take five.

Brigitte Davidovici (Kate): A beautiful person inside and out. Instantly winning from the moment you see her. Also an excellent baby-sitter.

Dustin Ingram (Josh): Gets more comedy out of one word than most people get out of a book. (Even the Bible, which is pretty funny.)

Constance Wu (Prudence): Beautiful. Intense scene presence. Funny and smart. Extremely fun to be around.

Marque Richardson (Gabe): Brings an inherent likability to a serious, sometimes humorless character. And man, can he tap dance. (For a later episode…)

Chris Wood (Justin): The interns’ supervisor. Half-man, half-douche, all-awesome.

Writing songs is hard enough – how much does it increase the degree of difficulty to also make them funny?

Actually, writing funny songs — at least songs I think are funny — is not that difficult once you come up with a single solid comedic premise for each one. The songs are for the most part much shorter than songs in either pop music or musical theater — two minutes tops, with the one-time exception of the opening song in the pilot episode — and, like a Monty Python sketch, we’re free to stop them at any time as soon as they no longer feel funny. But the good thing about writing songs in this format is that the burden of comedy is shared by not only the song and the performer, but by the visuals and the directing, and that is where a director of Don Scardino’s skill comes in and makes a song that was good on paper look amazing on screen.

How has the Amazon experience been so far?

I would not want Browsers to be anywhere else on TV — not network, basic cable or premium cable. The amount of freedom and trust I’ve been given, the commitment of money and resources, the directness of the communication with the powers-that-be and the quality of their notes, the possibilities entailed in a show about a website being aired on one — I couldn’t ask for anything more.

Check out the Amazon Studios Hollywonk blog for a song-by-song look at the Browsers soundtrack, available for free at Amazon MP3.

Kids' Pilots at Amazon: "We Want to Create Characters that Are Worthy to Have a Playdate With"

 

See how the kids' shows produced by Amazon (available at www.amazonoriginals.com) have been created with a commitment to educating children as well as entertaining them. And be sure to share your thoughts — viewer response will help determine which pilots return with additional episodes.

 

"Those Who Can't" Creators and Stars on TV, Comedy, and Making a Pilot for Amazon

Adam Cayton-Holland, Andrew Orvedahl, and Ben Roy, the co-writers and stars behind Amazon’s new original pilot, Those Who Can’t, recently sat down with one another in Adam’s living room in Denver, Colorado to talk about their show, which is now available for free on Amazon Instant Video. It went a little something like this:

Adam: So I’ll start with the first question: Who are you guys and what are you doing in my house?

Andrew: Adam, it’s us. Your early-onset dementia is getting the better of you again.

Ben: Alright, are you guys excited about the premiere of Those Who Can’t?

ADAM SCREAMS UNINTELLIGIBLY.

Andrew: I’m very excited. … I don’t know what the average daily visitor count to Amazon’s website is but I’d imagine it’s quite a few. To think of that many people being able to watch our show for free is kind of intimidating.

Andrew: What other sitcoms inspired you guys in writing this?

Adam: I was watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia a fair amount during this. I was watching The League a little bit too. I was also watching The Larry Sanders Show a lot. That’s a great show.

Ben: I watch a lot of older sitcoms. Now that my son is old enough I’ve been re-watching some of my old favorites with him — The Wonder Years, Freaks and Geeks, a few others…

Ben: We definitely were influenced by Strangers With Candy. We all mentioned that one when we started brainstorming the show.

Andrew: Probably one of my favorite shows ever. We all like high school shows and high school settings so it was really fun to make one of our own.

Adam: Andrew, what was your favorite part of filming?

Andrew: Anything other than getting hit in the face with a kickball over and over again. Not that for sure.

Ben: That was my favorite part.

Andrew: The most fun part was watching other people’s scenes, because then you could just sit back and it was kind of fun to watch. I don’t know, pretty much every scene I was in with Rory was pretty fun and really hard not to laugh. I broke like forty times.

Adam: Rory Scovel is hilarious in this episode. He plays the principal of Buchanan High School, where the show is set and where we’re all teachers.

An Inside Look at The Onion's "News Empire"

Truth. Ethics. Teamwork. It’s obvious which of these things drives the Onion News Network team — none of them. (Unless by "truth" you mean "truly amazing ratings.")

Will Graham and Dan Mirk tell the story of these fine journalists in Onion News Empire, one of 14 Amazon original pilots now playing for free at Amazon Instant Video. Viewer response will help determine which of these shows return with full seasons.

We asked Will and Dan about their show, their terrific cast (including Jeffrey Tambor, Cheyenne Jackson, and Chris Masterson), and what the future might hold for their characters.

How do you describe your show?

"Onion News Empire" is about ambitious reporters and anchors working for the world's most terrifying cable news channel. It's a comedy that thinks it's a very self-important drama — so it looks and feels like a combination of an Aaron Sorkin show and a Shonda Rimes show, but it's wall to wall ridiculous jokes. 

Why this world, why these characters?

We started The Onion News Network web video series in 2007 and almost from the beginning we'd been talking about how fun it would be to do a narrative show set behind the scenes at the network. As for the characters, we basically wanted to see the network from its lowliest employees (like our new reporter Sam West who is fresh from a two-bit local news station) to the very top of the corporation (like our evil CEO Helena who is personal friends with dictators and keeps a flesh-eating falcon in her office).

Tell me about your awesome cast, and what they brought to the show.

The cast is extremely talented and physically attractive. Jeffery Tambor takes every line and makes it so much funnier, more compelling, and weirder than you'd ever expect. Cheyenne Jackson looks and acts like he's from a superior species that will gradually replace humans because they're just better than we are  — he's so handsome, so kind, and so funny. Chris Masterson was a real prince  — he came onto the pilot about 48 hours before we shot and knocked it out of the park. He took a role that could have been a little boring and made it really funny and compelling. Aja Naomi King is just such a committed and talented actress  — a show like this get so ridiculous, that it needs someone incredible like Aja who can make even a silly joke about riding roller coasters by yourself somehow simultaneously hilarious and very sad. Bill Sadler is like a God to both of us, because we loved him in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. And Laila Robins — there's not much to say except that she's perfect in every way. She brought a scariness to the comedy that elevated the whole show.

What is the appeal of fake news?

We wouldn't know anything about that. The Onion News Network is real news. 

Writing hilarious headline jokes is hard enough – how much does it increase the degree of difficulty to create it as a part of a show?

Writing the headline jokes is always hard  — for every single headline that gets into the show, we have written pages and pages of others that all get thrown away, which is how The Onion has worked from the beginning. So that process is staying the same, but now we are also adding in the challenge of working those headlines into what we hope is a compelling narrative with characters people want to watch. So basically it is one hard thing plus another hard thing, which equals a harder thing. But at the end of the day you are still writing jokes which is a very fun job. We have nothing to complain about.

What inspires you?

The real news and regular dumb life are always our biggest inspirations. 

What does the future hold for your characters?

A lot of intrigue, back-stabbing, passion, and tragedy. The show is really an intensely serious drama that just happens to be filled with dumb jokes, so expect a lot of dramatic twists. Characters might get killed off, allegiances will change, a guy might go to space.

Should These "Test Movies" Become Real Movies? Amazon Studios Wants to Know What You Think

Dad finds a costumed crimefighter’s secret HQ and decides to don the mask in For Sale By Superhero.

A mission goes awry, and mercenaries must fight for their lives in Burma Rising.

These aren't movies yet — they're "test movies," visual rough drafts of a script created by Amazon Studios to make it even easier for film fans to offer their opinions. Would you like to see these stories produced as full-budget feature films?

The test movies are now available to watch for free at Amazon Instant Video and at the Amazon Studios site.

For Sale By Superhero, directed by Brett Jubinville of Tinman Creative Studios, is a colorful comedy the whole family will enjoy. Burma Rising, directed by Sung-Jin Ahn at Titmouse Animation Studio, is an intense thriller intended for adult audiences.

Learn more about Amazon Studios, and test movies, here.

Podcast Exclusive: Jane Espenson and Brad Bell Talk "Husbands," and Their Online Journey to Sitcom Success

The idea was born over a series of dinners: Jane Espenson, Hugo-award-winning writer for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, fell in love with her friend Brad Bell’s idea for a show about a fabulous actor (played by Bell), his gal pal (Alessandra Torresani, Caprica) and his boozily accidental wedding.

There’s a twist here, and it’s that the groom (aka Cheeks) didn’t marry the gal — he married another groom (Sean Hemeon, As the World Turns), a nervous and newly out ballplayer. The show’s name: Husbands. It’s a classic sitcom setup, opposites in love. But instead of on a network, it’s on the internet — at lovehusbands.com. Espenson and Bell created it together, and Espenson (currently a consulting producer of Once Upon a Time) funded the first season from her own pocket.

In Season 1 (11 episodes of about two minutes each) the grooms wake up married in Vegas and decide to make it work. Season 2, which debuted this week, picks up with the newlyweds living in their new home and dealing with the public fallout of their union. It will unfold over the course of three episodes of about eight minutes each, with behind-the-scenes specials for each one. Fans paid for the second season via Kickstarter, raising $50,000 in a week.

The second season also ups the ante on guest stars, with a virtual who’s who of the Whedonverse – including Joss himself, who appears in all three episodes. You’ll also see Amber Benson and Emma Caulfield (Buffy), and Dichen Lachman (Dollhouse). Plus Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) and Sasha Roiz (Caprica).

Espenson and Bell spoke with Amazon Studios about Husbands, creative freedom and working with Joss Whedon, actor. 

Some highlights:

On distributing the show online:
Espenson: We thought, oh, we’ll show that there is an audience out there, and then we can take it to the big stage. And then we realized, “There’s no bigger stage than this.”
Bell: What stage is bigger than the internet?
 

On working with Joss Whedon, the actor (he plays an agent in all three episodes):
Bell: He liked it so much, we were like “You want to be in it?”
Espenson: We had written a part and we were talking about other people.
Bell: Then we went back and tailored it once we knew it would be Joss. … We were very particular about the agent’s voice because we wanted a character who in classic agent fashion says “look, this is the situation and basically explains how things are dire and horrible” and you suddenly realize how dire and horrible it is and they say, “Whoa, why are things so dire and horrible all of a sudden?”  …  It was fun to give Joss that sort of voice of contradiction.
Espenson: There are a couple of moments where it takes some real acting finesse to make these turns, and he landed it, every time.

See more exclusive interviews at the Amazon Studios Hollywonk blog.

Ernest Borgnine, 1917- 2012

Actor Ernest Borgnine, who died on July 8th, 2012 at 95, had a career so long that how he will be remembered will depend on your age bracket. For the World War II generation, he will forever be either Sgt. “Fatso” Judson, Frank Sinatra’s nemesis in 1953’s From Here to Eternity, or else the title character in 1955’s Marty, which brought him an Oscar; movie buffs will also know that he was one of both The Dirty Dozen and The Wild Bunch. For baby boomers, Borgnine is synonymous with Lt. Cmdr. Quinton McHale on the mid-'60s sitcom McHale’s Navy (some may also recall that he was the very first "center square" on The Hollywood Squares in 1965), while TV viewers in the ‘80s will know him as Jan-Michael Vincent’s sidekick in Airwolf. And so it goes, through literally hundreds of big and small screen roles right up into the new millennium, when the actor, then well into his nineties, found a whole new audience as the voice of Mermaid Man on SpongeBob SquarePants.

Born Ermes Effron Borgnino on January 24, 1917, in Hamden, CT, Borgnine was the son of Italian immigrants. He turned to acting after spending ten years in the Navy, his first big break coming when he debuted on Broadway with a role in Harvey in 1949. Four marriages, including one to Ethel Merman that lasted all of one month (in her biography, Merman’s chapter about that union consisted of one blank page), ended in divorce before he married the former Tova Traesnaes in 1973.

In 2007, Borgnine became the oldest Golden Globe nominee ever, at 90, for the TV movie "A Grandpa for Christmas." It came 52 years after his only other Globe nomination, for "Marty," which he won. Although he didn't win that second time, Borgnine was as gracious as could be about it.

--Sam Graham

New From Amazon Studios: Seeking Ideas for Episodic Series

Amazon Studios, the movie-development arm of Amazon.com, today announced that it is expanding into episodic series — specifically primetime comedies and children’s shows.

TV writers and creators are invited to upload series proposals that will be reviewed by the Amazon Studios team and, potentially, added to the Development Slate. The best series will be distributed via Amazon Instant Video.

“Amazon Studios wants to discover great talent and produce programming that audiences will love,” said Roy Price, director of Amazon Studios. “In the course of developing movies, we’ve heard a lot of interest from content creators who want to develop original series in the comedy and children’s genres. We are excited to bring writers, animators and directors this new opportunity to develop original series.”

Of course, writers and filmmakers are still invited to submit their full-length feature film scripts for consideration at Amazon Studios. Creators of original movie scripts or series projects added to the Development Slate will receive a $10,000 payment. Learn more about Amazon Studios at the Hollywonk blog.

Share the Joy: A Filmmaker's Million Dollar Moment

Here's a dose of happy for you: Rob Gardner, winner of Amazon Studios’ $1 million Best Test Movie award, gets the good news from Amazon Studios director Roy Price earlier this week. (The winning movie, a musical adventure called 12 Princesses, is available to download/stream for free at Amazon Instant Video.)

 

 

 

Amazon Studios Announces Winners of $1.1 Million in Annual Awards

Congratulations to 12 Princesses and Origin of a Species, the projects selected today by a panel of top industry judges to receive Annual Awards totaling $1.1 million from Amazon Studios, the movie-development arm of Amazon.com.

“It has been an exciting year for Amazon Studios. We received projects from all over the world and have enjoyed collaborating with filmmakers and screenwriters to develop their original stories,” said Roy Price, director of Amazon Studios. “Choosing the best test movie and the best script was extremely challenging; with thousands of projects submitted it was difficult to recognize only two.”

The $1 million Best Test Movie Award went to 12 Princesses, the musical tale of a farmboy who risks his heart (and his life) to discover how royal sisters escape each night from the imprisonment of their mad father. Rob Gardner of Mesa, Ariz., wrote and directed the test movie, based on his stage musical version of the Grimm fairy tale of “The 12 Dancing Princesses.”

“It was really well received and, since then, I’ve felt like it would make a great film,” Gardner said. “When I heard about the Amazon Studios contest on NPR, it sounded like the perfect avenue to try to get such a movie made.”

12 Princesses and other top Amazon Studios test movies are available to download or stream for free at the Amazon Studios site, and at Amazon Instant Video.

The $100,000 Best Script Award went to Origin of a Species, the story of a former police officer whose German Shepherds are infected with rabies and terrorize a small, Midwestern community. Brooklyn-based screenwriter Matthew Gossett said his story has roots in reality: “I used to work with a guy in Cincinnati who was embroiled in a property line dispute with his elderly neighbor, and as their confrontations escalated, I wondered what would happen if chaos erupted. This screenplay is about chaos fed by humans and set loose upon a town.”

Annual Awards judges included Lawrence Bender (producer, Inglourious Basterds), Akiva Goldsman (writer, A Beautiful Mind), Trevor Groth (director of programming, Sundance Film Festival), Alexander Payne (writer/director The Descendants) and Courtenay Valenti (Executive Vice President of Production, Warner Bros. Pictures).

More than 7,000 scripts and 700 test movies have been submitted to Amazon Studios since its launch in November 2010. And in the past year, dozens of scripts, test movies and trailers have been awarded nearly $2 million.