Focus Testing panel from ATX

The Writers Panel

Ben Blacker

Tv & Film, Tv, Writing, Movies, Hollywood, Screenwriting

4.7 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2016

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kyle Killen (creator of Awake, Lone Star, and Mind Games) returns for another look at a specific track of television production with a presentation on the testing process. Following his breakdown of the unique stage of production, Kyle is joined by Julie Plec (co-creator, The Vampire Diaries and The Originals), Ben Wexler (co-creator, The Comedians), Chad Hodge (creator, Wayward Pines), and Dina Hillier (VP of Comedy Development, Paramount Television) to discuss their own experiences with focus groups and testing and how that changed his or her show.

Recorded at ATX Television Fest in June 2015.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Now entering nerdist.com.
0:05.4	Today's episode is recorded at ATX Television Festival.
0:09.6	This year's Fest is June 9th through 12th, and you should be there.
0:14.6	They've already announced really cool stuff like an Everybody Loves Raymond Reunion, Terriers, The Shield, with a bunch of writers from that show.
0:25.0	They've got Norman Lear. They've got Hart Hanson. Come on out. Go to ATXFestival.com.
0:32.2	Get your badge, June 9th through 12th, and come say hello.
0:34.5	Music through 12 and come say hello. So to get us started, we have Kyle Killen.
1:09.0	Kyle, I'd like to welcome each at the stage.
1:17.3	Thank you. So to get us started, we have Kyle Killen. Kyle, I'd like to welcome me to the stage. Hello.
1:18.2	Thank you guys so much for coming.
1:20.6	Today, I'm going to talk to you about super minutia in television.
1:23.8	I am going to talk to you about the critical process that determines what shows make
1:30.0	it to your eyeballs every year. The process called testing. I want to begin by warning you that
1:35.2	this is pretty representative of the level of clip art that you will be seeing throughout the rest
1:39.5	of the presentation. So if it was like you came to this festival for a PowerPoint from 1994, this is the high watermark in your weekend.
1:50.2	So any discussion of testing television focus groups, it usually leads pretty quickly right back to Seinfeld.
1:58.1	So the story goes that in 1989, NBC had two pilots. One was testing through the
2:04.4	roof. The other was testing, I guess, is through the floor. That seems like an expression. We'll pretend
2:11.2	that it is. So the show that the audiences were in love with was called Sister Kate. It was about a
2:17.1	nun who ends up taking care of a bunch of orphans.
2:19.8	And the show that they could not stand was called Seinfeld, and it was famously about nothing.
2:26.7	So we all know how this turns out. One of these shows is on the air for 18 episodes. The other one is on for 180.
	...

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