Lorne Michaels: Generally, with writers, its been my experience that unless actively discouraged, you tend to write your last hit. Over and over, until the audience or someone else, discourages you from doing it.
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Lorne Michaels: My only real plan was to find the most talented people I could find. It had to be people that made you laugh, but it also had to be people that you could drive across country with and not kill.
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Lorne Michaels: As a producer your job is to actively discourage creativity. Creativity is generally defined as, “I want to express myself and I need a lot of time to do it.” If you’re writing a front page, there’s only so many things that you can say that are important enough to be on that front page.
Oprah Presents Master Class with Lorne Michaels / Aired: 01/30/2011
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Showing posts with label Creative Process. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Creative Process. Show all posts
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Milling About Flashback with Jerry Seinfeld
Robin Milling: Tell me about when you first realized that this is happening for me and I’m on my way.
Jerry Seinfeld: I think just now. Just this week, I started thinking that this is really happening. I got a great review in TV Guide. Did you see it?
RM: No, not yet.
JS: I just got this rave review for the show in TV Guide and I thought, “Wow, this is really happening.” At first you just think of it as a lark, and then it becomes just something that you do, and then you stop thinking about it. I kinda forgot that like, just, if I get really good at this or I become really popular I’ll be like some kind of a star or something. I kinda really forgot about that. For years, literally.
It was just I worked on my jokes, I go do my shows, I never think about catching on. Its just not in my mind. I’m too busy working on my stuff, you know? Cause that’s what I really like about it. I don’t really care about the attention or the fame/notoriety. Those things don’t really excite me, to tell you the truth.
What excites me is working on jokes and figuring out, you know, how to make this funny, and how to do that so that people will like it, you know. I don’t think of it as a vehicle to get me somewhere. Like to get a movie, or get a TV series. Those things don’t really seem that exciting to me. What excites me is to get a joke to work that no-one’s ever heard before — that’s never been a joke — a laugh that no-one’s ever laughed at this subject before. That excites me.
Milling About Flashback with Jerry Seinfeld / by Robin Milling / 1987
Jerry Seinfeld: I think just now. Just this week, I started thinking that this is really happening. I got a great review in TV Guide. Did you see it?
RM: No, not yet.
JS: I just got this rave review for the show in TV Guide and I thought, “Wow, this is really happening.” At first you just think of it as a lark, and then it becomes just something that you do, and then you stop thinking about it. I kinda forgot that like, just, if I get really good at this or I become really popular I’ll be like some kind of a star or something. I kinda really forgot about that. For years, literally.
It was just I worked on my jokes, I go do my shows, I never think about catching on. Its just not in my mind. I’m too busy working on my stuff, you know? Cause that’s what I really like about it. I don’t really care about the attention or the fame/notoriety. Those things don’t really excite me, to tell you the truth.
What excites me is working on jokes and figuring out, you know, how to make this funny, and how to do that so that people will like it, you know. I don’t think of it as a vehicle to get me somewhere. Like to get a movie, or get a TV series. Those things don’t really seem that exciting to me. What excites me is to get a joke to work that no-one’s ever heard before — that’s never been a joke — a laugh that no-one’s ever laughed at this subject before. That excites me.
Milling About Flashback with Jerry Seinfeld / by Robin Milling / 1987
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Bullseye with Jesse Thorn / Guest: Marc Maron
Jesse Thorn: To you it seemed like the idea that you were doing well seemed like you had an opportunity to do something, to go further, in order to do less well.
Marc Maron: Well, I think that what that is, is not so much less well as that, like, I get the, sometimes I get the feeling that like, when I do bits that work and uh, uh, especially like now, I just got done with like, really 6 months on the road, and I’m very tired of the bits but all the bits I’ve been doing for the last few months have evolved. And some of them are very new, and I’m very happy with them but, but there… I think its more about not self sabotage, but more like, “Okay, you think you know me? How about this now?”
JT: I feel that you were requiring something more of the audience rather…. That you see this as an opportunity to like, to push the audience more…
MM: Well I, I think that’s true and I’m not sure that I can exactly tell you where that comes from but a lot of what you’re saying… the agenda is not so much to find something that isn’t funny that, that I can try to make funny but it is how I write. And a lot of times when I’ve got an audience that has loved me for a half-hour and that I can do no wrong by, part of me thinks, “Well let’s see… this just happened… or I have not been able to process this on stage yet…” so these people like me, so let’s take it out. You know, let’s put it out there, and see if I can make it funny. And that doesn’t always work. But it’s really where the process starts.
Bullseye with Jesse Thorn / Guest: Marc Maron / 10.23.11
Marc Maron: Well, I think that what that is, is not so much less well as that, like, I get the, sometimes I get the feeling that like, when I do bits that work and uh, uh, especially like now, I just got done with like, really 6 months on the road, and I’m very tired of the bits but all the bits I’ve been doing for the last few months have evolved. And some of them are very new, and I’m very happy with them but, but there… I think its more about not self sabotage, but more like, “Okay, you think you know me? How about this now?”
JT: I feel that you were requiring something more of the audience rather…. That you see this as an opportunity to like, to push the audience more…
MM: Well I, I think that’s true and I’m not sure that I can exactly tell you where that comes from but a lot of what you’re saying… the agenda is not so much to find something that isn’t funny that, that I can try to make funny but it is how I write. And a lot of times when I’ve got an audience that has loved me for a half-hour and that I can do no wrong by, part of me thinks, “Well let’s see… this just happened… or I have not been able to process this on stage yet…” so these people like me, so let’s take it out. You know, let’s put it out there, and see if I can make it funny. And that doesn’t always work. But it’s really where the process starts.
Bullseye with Jesse Thorn / Guest: Marc Maron / 10.23.11
Sunday, April 1, 2012
George Carlin's Last Interview
Jay Dixit: You asked me to remind you to tell me about Arthur Koestler.
George Carlin: That was another impact. I was doing nightclub comedy down in the Village. I was down there in ’63, ’64, and my friend told me about Arthur Koestler’s book about the act of creation and it had a section on humor.
He was talking about the creative process. There was an illustration on the panel that showed a triptych. On the left panel, there were these names of artistic pursuits. There were poets, painter, composer. And one of them was jester. I was only interested in the jester. What he said about each of these, he said these individuals on the left hand side can transcend the panels of the triptych by creative growth.
The jester makes jokes, he’s funny, he makes fun, he ridicules. But if his ridicules are based on sound ideas and thinking, then he can proceed to the second panel, which is the thinker—he called it the philosopher. The jester becomes the philosopher, and if he does these things with dazzling language that we marvel at, then he becomes a poet too. Then the jester can be a thinking jester who thinks poetically.
I didn’t see that and say, “That’s what I am going to do,” but I guess it made an impression on me. I was never afraid to grow and change. I never was afraid of reversing my field on people, and I just think I’ve become a touch of each of those second and third descriptions and I definitely have a gift for language that is rhythmic and attractive to the ear, and I have interesting imagery which I guess is a poetic touch. And I like the fact that most of my things are based on solid ideas, things I’ve thought about in a new way for me, things for which I have said “Well, what about this? Suppose you look at it this way? How about that?” And then you heighten and exaggerate that, because comedy’s all about heightening and exaggerating. And anyways I guess I was impressed that there was another thing from my early life that probably at least influenced me to some level.
George Carlin: That was another impact. I was doing nightclub comedy down in the Village. I was down there in ’63, ’64, and my friend told me about Arthur Koestler’s book about the act of creation and it had a section on humor.
He was talking about the creative process. There was an illustration on the panel that showed a triptych. On the left panel, there were these names of artistic pursuits. There were poets, painter, composer. And one of them was jester. I was only interested in the jester. What he said about each of these, he said these individuals on the left hand side can transcend the panels of the triptych by creative growth.
The jester makes jokes, he’s funny, he makes fun, he ridicules. But if his ridicules are based on sound ideas and thinking, then he can proceed to the second panel, which is the thinker—he called it the philosopher. The jester becomes the philosopher, and if he does these things with dazzling language that we marvel at, then he becomes a poet too. Then the jester can be a thinking jester who thinks poetically.
I didn’t see that and say, “That’s what I am going to do,” but I guess it made an impression on me. I was never afraid to grow and change. I never was afraid of reversing my field on people, and I just think I’ve become a touch of each of those second and third descriptions and I definitely have a gift for language that is rhythmic and attractive to the ear, and I have interesting imagery which I guess is a poetic touch. And I like the fact that most of my things are based on solid ideas, things I’ve thought about in a new way for me, things for which I have said “Well, what about this? Suppose you look at it this way? How about that?” And then you heighten and exaggerate that, because comedy’s all about heightening and exaggerating. And anyways I guess I was impressed that there was another thing from my early life that probably at least influenced me to some level.
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