Thursday, March 22, 2007

Friday Night Lights is airing its final four, with its renewal hanging in the balance. Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune has a slew of stories about it.

One talks about how they shoot the show, with location shooting, multiple floating cameras and a lot of improvisation. Yikes! Wow! I am in awe.

One's an interview with Jason Katims, the showrunner.

And here's an interview with Kevin Reilly, head of NBC Entertainment, on how they're trying to find an audience for the show rather than changing what the show is.

There's some overlap, but they're all worth reading.

You are watching the show, right? Wednesday nights, NBC, 8 pm.

Labels: artistic process, directing, production, watching tv

11:30 AM

8 Comments:

we tried watching the show after hearing from fans how good it was. yes, it's well shot and well acted (although it does feature a lot of young pretty people being dramatic which can grate), but ultimately this is exactly why we stopped watching:

"I get so much email from people saying – I feel like they’re watching my life. This is my life on the screen."

o.k. i don't know about you, but i don't watch tv to see my life. i watch it to see something i don't or didn't get to experience.

in the end we just didn't find the show that interesting. and we were motivated - we wanted to like it because we believed it was a quality show. but ultimately it doesn't matter if you're not interested in the material.

By  deepstructure, at 2:15 PM  

only watched the first episode, but it was an awful show...predictable, slow, weak characters, etc.
I'm shocked this one lasted almost a full season.

By  Allen, at 8:41 PM  

Are we watching the same Friday Night Lights?

The show is the best thing airing right now. Pure bottled drama.

By  Lee, at 12:50 PM  

I only saw the first episode, unless it drastically changed though, I'd say you're crazy. It was cliche, had a weak plot, predictable, etc.

By  Allen, at 2:22 AM  

I don't understand you people. Friday Night Lights is fantastic! It is so real and has a way of making you care about the characters that no other show can even compete with.

It's spoiled me for other shows, which now look fake and contrived.

I can understand if you don't want to see something that looks so real, but saying people want to escape reality doesn't explain the popularity of reality shows. Obviously, some people like realism. Maybe that's the problem. FNL has a realism that no so-called reality show can come close to.

By  Unknown, at 9:20 PM  

I resisted watching this show for a very long time because I thought it was just another one of those teen shows and yes I did watch the pilot when it first came on but didnt really think much of it. But after reading so many good reviews I finally decided to really give it a chance and boy, was I kicking myself for not doing so sooner, because this show really is one of a kind...it blows my mind how it just keeps getting better and better...the characters are fleshed out extremely well that you can't help but get emotionally involved in them.

By  mikimouse, at 10:01 PM  

This is the first time where I have ever seen negative comments from people who actually sat down to watch.

FNL is the ONLY show I appointment watch right now and after a whole season, I can barely stand to watch any other network TV. I agree with the previous post about everything feeling contrived and silly. CSI Miami, anyone?

By  Tanaya, at 10:22 AM  

thanks for that first link! I've been wondering a lot about their set, since EW hinted at the actors doing so much improvisation, which seemed odd based on what I know about other sets. And I'm am glad to hear about the three camera style, because I was kinda worried that they were actually using a billion setups for each scene, and fretting over how long that must take to shoot...

NBC really messed up the promotion of it, I think, by showing only the football stuff. I try to convince my friends that it "isn't only about football!", and immediately a trailer comes on that contradicts me.

By  nadia*, at 11:19 AM  

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