Jason Gann Quotes

Hundreds of people who've never written before send in 'Dr. Who' scripts. They may have good ideas, but what they fail to realise is that writing for TV is incredibly complicated. They have no idea how difficult it is and what the financial commitment is.

If you want to write for films or TV, you must go to Hollywood.

I have a pretty big TV background, and I have clocked so many hours in so many writers' rooms over the years.

Writing scripts is a laborious job that can be a real pain.

In the summer of 2010, I had decided to get into film and TV writing, so I wrote scripts for six different ideas I had developed, and the pilot for 'True Detective' was one of them.

For sure, without question, the writing is better on TV pound for pound than movies because the businesses have changed so much. So all the great writers would rather work for TV, and they do.

I wrote for 'The Sopranos' and worked on big, blustery characters for quite a while.

For all the hundreds of scripts that are out there, there's not that many that are amazing.

I started out working as a script editor and storyliner.

Everyone in Hollywood has a screenplay.

I read a lot of scripts, so I know by page 25 if I like it or not.

Writing for a soap - writing for 25 characters day in, day out - is one of the most difficult jobs in Hollywood.

And dialogue, I'm good at it, and it's because it's the only thing you have to work with in TV writing.

I wasn't involved, except to the degree that they sent me drafts of the script as the writer turned them in. They asked me at one point to write a memo about what I thought of it.

Writing, yeah. Me and my friend Scott Bloom just finished the first rough draft of a script. It's taken us three years to do, but we finally got a first draft. And we'll see whatever happens with that.

I was hired to do this one great script called 'Cap'n Ricky' and that project is up in the air at the moment.

When you have a good script you're almost in more trouble than when you have a terrible script.

The writing in those HBO dramas, like 'The Wire,' is as good as anything I've seen.

I've written pilots. I wrote a movie.

I can't remember what my first script was.

Matthew Wiener on 'Mad Men' writes the entire series before they start shooting, and if you have that, then what you can do with character and story is not at all unlike what you can do in a novel.

Whenever I hear the narration for a new film, I have this process back home where my mother reads all my scripts.

In terms of writing and developing, TV is very open because TV needs stories. They need new pitches, and they need new ideas. They don't always take the risk for new ideas, but they are certainly open to it. They can't have enough people come in and pitch to them. It doesn't matter how they look or what gender they are.

I really love being in a room and developing work.: being at the table, looking at the script for the first time, and putting a story on its feet.

There are a lot of good writers in TV!