From One Media to Another

I’ve been fortunate to have several television deals, and I can tell you from experience, the two forms of entertainment are utterly dissimilar. If you suppose I mean seeing the action of a plot rather than reading the action of a plot, you’re mistaken. Sure, that makes a tremendous difference; not everything that reads beautifully on the page films beautifully. And an actor’s interpretation of your character can be quite surprising.

But here’s the difference that means most to me: scheduling. In publishing, there is little spontaneity. You have a deadline. You have to stick to it. Then comes the other steps necessary to produce a book: the cover is scheduled to appear, the copy editor and editor have a time budget to work, the author has to have this new incarnation back in by a certain date, and the actual printing is figured into the schedule of a printing company.

This is all far in advance, right? It often takes a year to produce a book, after the manuscript is on the desk of the editor.

Television is not like this, and that’s putting it mildly. When I was asked to visit the Midnight set in Albuquerque recently, it was hard to find a day when the rest of the cast would be there. I was due to film an interview at noon. I filmed it at five-thirty p.m. I know it cannot actually be this way, but it seems like the production schedule is determined on a day-to-day basis.

I could not deal with this state of affairs, after years of being in the publishing industry. It feels haphazard and random to me, and I feel insecure and jangled when I’m swept up as part of it.

Maybe that’s mutual. Sometimes the people I deal with (and they’re all hardworking and talented people) can’t get the rigidity of the publishing world. For example, it’s hard for them to see that a signing schedule is not something that can be lightly re-booked.

Maybe we seek our industry because of our predilection for the style of the thing?

Charlaine Harris

Comments

[Elaine Viets]

I spent a little time in TV on the local level, Charlaine, as a host. I had a difficult time dealing with the "hurry up and wait" of putting on a show. We would have to be on set at 7 AM, but by the time the set and script and taping were worked out, I really didn't get to work until four or five hours later. I enjoyed TVs creativity, but it's a very different work than print.

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Oh, gosh, as a TV reporter, everything goes SO FAST! But on the programming side, it takes four hours to shoot a 30 second promo, and days to edit it.

And it's so crazy--it took me a while to get used to the sloooow pace of publishing. Now I've learned it's so reassuring, and nice to be able to edit and revise..and know a schedule in advance.

So--our work metabolisms are all different!