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[Tuesday at NAB]
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‘Lost’ Producers to Talk Content
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by John Merli,
~ April 15, 2008
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TV TECHNOLOGY
If you’re ever stranded on a desert island, you might be wise to include Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof in your party.
Both are co-executive producers of the TV series “Lost,” the popular fictional series that chronicles a band of plane-crash castaways on a mysterious island who suddenly must confront the most basic challenges to survive physically, and learn to live with each other as well.
Cuse and Lindelof will be featured in a live, on-stage interview format this morning, 9–10 a.m., as part of the Spotlight Series. Asking the questions will be Cynthia Littleton, author and deputy editor of Variety.
STRATEGIC WRITING
Since its debut on ABC in 2004, the Emmy-winning “Lost” has taken millions of viewers along on its dramatic weekly struggles to endure, which often combine imaginative “back-story” flashbacks to enhance character development with the unsettling present-day reality of being totally cut off from modern civilization.
In the real world, like virtually all other television series, “Lost” was severely affected by the writers’ strike, which caused production to shut down on scores of TV and motion picture projects for several months.
Cuse, who was very active on the picket lines around Burbank, Calif., during the work stoppage, said the strike will result in the “Lost” team producing and airing a total of only 13 episodes this season, instead of the planned 16.
“The strike affected our entire season quite a lot, but we think it will turn out to actually be an advantage having to condense eight episodes of narrative into five hours. Sometimes constraints can actually benefit the creative process,” Cuse said.
The challenge of condensing parts of the ongoing storyline by the two executive producers, said Lindelof, is something they began to confront in earnest as soon as the strike ended in February. Filming and other production activities started up again on March 10 in Oahu, Hawaii (where the series “island” is located) and in somewhat less scenic Burbank, where the nitty-gritty writing gets done.
The first of the five new episodes is set to air Thursday night, April 24, in its usual timeslot immediately following new episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC.
“It’s essential now that some things have to stay and some must go, but you can’t forsake the emotional elements of the story,” Lindelof said about having to eliminate three planned episodes this year. “But some story [lines] will simply get shelved and saved instead of being cancelled altogether, and we’ll try to use them next season.”
Cuse said he and Lindelof concurred with network executives who decided not to run new episodes into the summer months. “Audiences still drop off a lot after Memorial Day and we agreed the best deal for the show was to air some new episodes here in the spring and then take a break until next season,” said Cuse.
Lindelof added that “some new episodes shown routinely on cable like ‘The Closer’ can do well in summer months because they’re not usually up against new shows on the major [broadcast] networks.”
WORKING TOGETHER
Both executive producers agree they work in tandem with each other, with neither of them holding specific responsibilities that the other could not handle, when required.
“We’re physically together for much of each day, and then there are other times when we have to ‘divide and conquer,’ maybe putting out three fires at a time, or we’re just letting them burn out,” Cuse said. “We get over to Hawaii now and then, where it’s shot, but the truth is by now it’s all a pretty well-oiled machine. But we use a lot of technology to bridge the 3,000 miles of open water between Burbank and Oahu,” Cuse said.
Added Lindelof, “Mainly with the good old-fashioned telephone.”
“It’s not just managing a television show with ‘Lost,’ but also an entire brand — everything from tee-shirts to new things like mini-episodes for Verizon [cell phones] to ‘alternative reality’ games,” Cuse said. “In all, I think we have about 30 ancillary products. So there’s a lot more to ‘Lost’ than just running a TV show.”
Cuse and Lindelof also are well aware of the different ways that viewers now watch the hour-long TV episodes, beyond traditional linear television scheduling. “Maybe they see it nearly a week later after its airdate on their TiVo, or on [broadband] streaming on ABC.com,” Cuse said. “And we sold over a million DVDs of past seasons, along with several hundred-thousand downloads from iTunes.”
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