Jason Katims Quotes

Typically on a TV series, the writers on a show are writing for their life almost every episode. When someone sits down to write a Netflix show, they know there's going to be a 13th hour.

Writing for television is completely different from movie scriptwriting. A movie is all about the director's vision, but television is a writer's medium.

The film's dramatic requirements should always take precedence over the mere aesthetics of editing.

I think it's not uncommon for new television shows to spend certainly the first year, but without a doubt, like, the first eight or ten episodes, kind of figuring out what the show is.

I was fortunate enough to do an HBO show, 'Rome,' in which my arc was built in by historical fact, and over the course of 22 episodes, we were able to tell the stories of these people. We had a beginning and middle and end, and as we went on, you changed every week.

Comics have years to explain this stuff, and in a movie, you have to focus on one thing. So it's about kind of streamlining, I think. Some of the most successful origin films actually have a narrower focus.

On 'Master of None,' the majority of the episodes were just one story, and that was by design because we really wanted to focus in on the character of Dev and get the audience in his head.

Sometimes there were certain things in 'Limmy's Show' where I'd be having to come up with six episodes and as a result there was stuff in there that wasn't my favourite and I'd think, 'ach I'll shove that in this episode.'

I think you have to pick and choose what is most important to tell the story.

The visual stuff just lives inside of you. As far as really being able to take care of an actor on a set, how to talk to an actor, and how to get what you need out of a scene is probably where I might know a thing or two. Although, in TV, the actors are pretty much left alone. It's really the writer's medium more than anything.

There are story-room sessions where you think about the big picture, like a novel, but once you have certain things in place, you have to treat each episode like an hour of TV, and think that maybe this will be the only episode that anyone will ever watch. You want to have some sort of beginning, middle, and end to the episode, even if you have storylines that are carrying over. You still want it to feel like a cohesive hour of entertainment. And you can't think about both at the same time.

The way television works is that directors come in and out, and they're not there all the time, following every character through every scene. They're vagabonds who go from one show to another.

What is useful about when there is a sort of pull-out to reveal moment going on is that it actually focuses the mind when you're writing the earlier scenes because you're thinking 'right, how do I? I can only show this amount of the room... I can only show these characters from the waist up because they've all got robot legs!' it's a challenge so it keeps you engaged on some level.

I want the look of a movie to be secondary. I really want people to be engaged in the story and the characters and not think about a style or think about me or think about the director of photography and what a great job he's doing. I never feel like that should be there.

To be honest, I don't think of any of my characters as minor characters - they're all the main characters in a story that I don't necessarily get to tell.

What is absolutely true is that any good [Television] series has a specific voice. And I think that voice is almost exclusively the domain of the executive producer. . . . As a staff writer you're not being called upon to be the great creative person. You're sort of called upon to understand the characters and their voices and put them through certain paces.

TV and film are very different media with different requirements. In a TV show, you have actors and fellow writers and directors, who are interpreting your work. With a novel, you only have ink, words and your reader.

Character is the plot in many ways

The trap into which all writers have, will, or should fall into, of writing The Great American Watchamacallit, is such an uncluttered and inviting one that from time to time I'm sure even the greatest have to pull themselves up short by the Shift key to remind themselves that it is story first that they should write.

You don't look at it as the size of the role. Quantity is not the point. You can be as thorough in 30 seconds as you can in three hours.

If you want to make a great sports movie, don't put too much sports in it. It's the backdrop. It's the environment.

I think artists are going to express things from an emotional point of view, that's their job, to suggest and interpret, and report what they witness. That's their job as artists, you're looking for the rub, where's the rub, you're a storyteller, you're looking for the rub, not necessarily the solutions, or you're not necessarily educated, you're not the winner of a debate contest, a national debate contest, you're not necessarily a person who has a doctorate in anything.

Every episode has a purpose to move the story forward.

You just have to learn to get really good at choosing your moments and making sure that your story isn't overwhelmed by the effects, and that your emotional storyline is what's driving the train.

The key to good worldbuilding is leaving out most of what you create. You, as the author, had damn well better know the where all that dragon food comes from, but that doesn't mean that I, as a reader, want to read a five thousand word essay about you explaining it to me. I don't need to see the math, but I can tell by the details you provide whether or not you've thought these things through to their logical conclusions.