Episode Notes
An Emmy award-winning movie producer, Michael Swanson is also a television studio executive, serving as a vice president of production at NBCUniversal. He graduated from Notre Dame in 1993 and was back on campus in June for the University’s annual reunion weekend.
Michael joined host Ted Fox for our first live show. Recorded in Notre Dame’s Duncan Student Center, they passed on brunch because we thought it would be awkward to have people watch them chew on stage.
Michael has been involved behind the scenes on some of the most acclaimed comedies in recent years—shows like Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and The Good Place. In this episode, he takes us inside the table reads he remembers most, the studio production system that moves a show from the initial pitch to air, and the evolving TV landscape of broadcast networks and streaming services. He and Ted also talked about the independent entertainment production company, Faith Filmworks, he founded with his wife, Christine.
And as for the rock-climbers scaling the climbing wall in front of them? Well, they just added to the ambience.
Episode Transcript
*Note: We do our best to make these transcripts as accurate as we can. That said, if you want to quote from one of our episodes, particularly the words of our guests, please listen to the audio whenever possible. Thanks.
TED FOX: From the University of Notre Dame, this is With a Side of Knowledge. I'm your host, Ted Fox. The idea behind this show is pretty simple: A university campus is a destination for all kinds of interesting people, representing all kinds of research specialties and fields of expertise. So why not invite some of these folks out to brunch—yes, I said brunch—where we'll have an informal conversation about their work, and then I'll turn those brunches into a podcast? It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.
Except this time, my guest and I didn't go to brunch because it was a live show and we thought it would be awkward to have people watch us chew on stage. An Emmy Award-winning movie producer, Michael Swanson is also a television studio executive, serving as vice president of production at NBCUniversal. He graduated from Notre Dame in 1993 and was back on campus in June for the University's annual reunion weekend.
Michael has been involved behind the scenes on some of the most acclaimed comedies in recent years—shows like Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and The Good Place. In this episode, he takes us inside the table reads he remembers most, the studio production system that moves a show from the initial pitch to air, and the evolving TV landscape of broadcast networks and streaming services. We also talk about the independent entertainment production company, Faith Filmworks, he founded with his wife, Christine.
And as for the rock climbers scaling the wall in front of us … Well, let's just say there was a lot going on in the Duncan Student Center that day.
TED FOX: Michael Swanson, welcome.
MICHAEL SWANSON: Thank you, Ted. Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.
TED: In your wife, Christine, I feel like we have a very captive audience right in front of us, so that's a good thing. I wanted to start with, you're a vice president of production at NBCUniversal, and in that role there, you have overseen or currently oversee studio production on really some of the most acclaimed comedies of the last several years. I'm a big comedy fan, so running through your imDb there, it's impressive. It’s shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Master of None, Parks and Recreation, The Good Place. I'm wondering, and we were talking about this a little bit earlier, what does work look like for you when you go to the office everyday, working on those kinds of shows and what do you do for those shows?
MICHAEL: Every day is very different. I always say that there is a phone call or an email that I could receive in the morning that could change the whole course of my day just based on what the content of that problem is or email is or phone call is. What I do for those shows that you mentioned is my job is to put out fires, ultimately, and to address problems or issues. I have to make sure that our shows stay on budget, the shows that I oversee stay on budget. I make sure that we execute those shows efficiently, produce them, make them ready for television or the streaming service in Master of None’s case. But every day is different. I attend table reads for all of my shows each week.
Because I do mostly single-camera comedies, we have, except for Master of None, for all of my shows, we have a five-day shoot week, we shoot five days. We'll start shooting on a Monday. But also on that Monday, we're prepping for the following week's episode. We're shooting, we’re location scouting. We are having a production meeting. We're having a logistics meeting or having a tone meeting. So many things go into making sure that this show or the next week's episode will be produced efficiently. And one thing I'm going to say about comedies is, it’s kind of fun to go to work because I'll go to a table read and I get to laugh. I've worked on some really fun shows, and my very first show at NBCUniversal that I was assigned to oversee was a show called Community.
TED: Oh sure.
MICHAEL: And Community was a show that was challenging at times but was very fun to work on. What aired—those were perfect episodes, very engaging, people love those episodes. But behind the scenes from a production standpoint, it was sometimes trial by fire with that show, and I learned a lot. Again, I had done movie production for so many years and although television is production too, they’re different kinds of animals. For a movie, for example, when we are about to produce a movie, if for example, one of our actors has a delay because the project that he or she is currently on is delayed, we can push our start date. If the script, for example, we felt needed a little bit more work, we can push our date. For television, you have an air date, so you're starting that episode on a Monday, and you have to finish it by that Friday because that following episode is going to begin next week, and you have an air date that you have to hit, and you have to do post.
So although I had done movies, by the time it kind of … television is still production, but it's just a much faster pace. And when you have shows that can, if the script is coming later than it should come and you don't have adequate time to properly prep for the following week's episode, that can be challenging and can cost more money because now you're dealing with rush fees and things like that. So my first show was Community, and then I moved onto Parks and Recreation, and Parks and Recreation was really such a wonderful experience and a fun show to work on. And we did so many things—I should say this: I love thinking outside of the box, especially as a producer or working in productions because when the writers create something that may not seem typical for a television show to do, I'm like, wow, let's figure out how we can pull this off.
TED: And those two shows are great examples. I mean Community especially was the definition of, let's do an animated episode. But both of those shows, the creative energy kind of leapt off the screen.
MICHAEL: That's right, that's exactly right. The difference is, you have to determine how you can pull these things off, how you can execute these episodes with the limited amount of financial resources that you may have to work with and still give the writers what they want to see on screen, and so that becomes exciting for me.
TED: I mean, one of the things I think is so cool about what you do, I imagine the experience of being at table reads on these shows—imagine each show has its own feel, maybe each episode has its own feel. I'm not going to put you on the spot and say: Best story you've ever had from attending a table read. But I'm wondering if you had to say a top five story from one of the shows you've worked on, of being in that room when a table read goes on, is there anything that comes to mind as one of the better memories or crazier memories or stranger memories that you've had?
MICHAEL: I must say a very heartfelt memory that I have was when we read the last episode for Parks and Recreation, the series finale that was written by Mike Schur, who was the co-creator of Parks of Recreation and the showrunner for that show, and Amy Poehler, and Mike also directed that episode. So we get into the room. This was episode 7-13, the final episode. And we knew that this would be a moving table read. And so I should also mention before I continue with this story, Parks and Recreation, we would have our table reads in the writers’ room, so it was a very tiny space. But it's very important—and this is on all my shows—you don't want to mess with the magic. So if this room works well, the ambience is good and the acoustics are really great in this room, despite the size, this is where for the course of that show where you want to continue to go for your table reads. And so we were in this tiny writers’ room for Parks and Recreation. And that last episode, I mean a lot of the actors just couldn't keep it together, it was so emotional. And then the crew, department heads around the room—I mean, this is a show that they had worked on, many of them, from the pilot episode, so seven seasons, and I was sitting there, and that was one that I will always remember.
Same for shows … I’ve had a couple of shows that have reached 100 episodes, like Community. I remember that table read. Parks and Rec, I remember that. And then most recently, Brooklyn Nine-Nine last season, we reached 100 episodes. And those are milestones, especially in today's world, especially for single-camera comedies, to reach 100 episodes. So I remember key moments like that. And I remember Master of None. I remember having a table read in Modena, Italy, because we were over there shooting our first two episodes. So we had a table read, I believe it was for episode two; we were over there and we beamed it back to Los Angeles so the Netflix and Universal Television executives could tune in. So yeah, fortunately a lot of wonderful moments like that I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing over the years.
TED: You just saying the 100th episode … Is that also—I think this is just a layman's understanding, I have no idea if it's right or not—I believe at some point the idea of getting to that 100th episode for syndication purposes was kind of, that was a goal. Is that accurate? Is that still accurate? Is that something that a show shoots for, for that purpose?
MICHAEL: That used to be the goal because once you reached 100 episodes, that is instant syndication. And as you know, it’s very lucrative; I think of Seinfeld and shows like that, that hit that benchmark. But not necessarily anymore. It's more of a feather in your cap. Brooklyn Nine-Nine, for example, went into syndication after the first season. So it's just a different landscape. There's so many outlets now for our television shows that you don't have to have as many episodes and can still license those shows to cable channels or Hulu or different streaming services before you hit 100 episodes.
TED: I'm glad that you mentioned Brooklyn Nine-Nine there because when I was running through that list of shows you've worked on before, people who know comedy know that that is an example of a show that at least to this point has not aired on NBC. It's going to start airing on NBC now coming over from Fox. But I’m wondering if you use that as kind of an example, I think in the average person's mind, you hear NBC or any network, you kind of conflate all these things together and don't necessarily think about the difference of, there's NBC the television network, there's NBCUniversal the creator of content, and NBCUniversal could create something that's not necessarily on NBC the television network. Can you talk a little bit about how those two entities relate to each other, the production company and not even NBC specifically, but just how that works, with a production company and then a network.
MICHAEL: Under the NBCUniversal umbrella, we have our studio entity, which is Universal Television, and we have our sister network NBC, which everyone knows NBC. And a lot of people may not realize, to your point, that Master of None, for example, is a Universal Television property that we licensed to, in that case, Netflix. But what usually happens is that if we have show creators come and pitch an idea to the studio creative team and they become very excited about this project and want to get behind it, those creative executives may understand pretty quickly that, you know what, this outlet would be a better fit for this show than NBC. And ultimately you want to get behind a show and produce a show that can find an audience at the proper location with the proper fit. And that's not always NBC.
So they'll do their due diligence, and they'll shop that show around to the homes that could be a better fit. And Brooklyn Nine-Nine, back then when that show was pitched, it just felt like Fox was a better fit. It was pitched a lot of places, but Fox is the one that was most excited about the show and ordered it to pilot. So we as a result produced the show, but then would license it to Fox. And now, so Fox decided that they wanted to move in another direction and kind of change up their lineup for their network. And as a result that freed up Brooklyn Nine-Nine to go elsewhere—in this case, NBC.
It felt like a big homecoming because Dan Gore and Mike Schur are the co-creators of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Dan Gore had worked up through NBC for years, and he was a writer on Parks and Recreation and eventually with Mike created Brooklyn Nine-Nine. So it was really nice for them to come back to NBC. I think NBC always felt that Brooklyn Nine-Nine could have been the series that got away, and it was just the perfect timing for it to come back. I was just in a meeting last week and heard the pitch for season six. So I think it's going to be a wonderful season. I think people are going to be very happy with it.
TED: You talked a little bit there about finding—you had this piece of content and finding the right home for it, that it might not always, NBC Universal might not always be NBC is the right home. And I'm wondering in kind of a broader sense, at the moment, if there's any conventional wisdom or philosophy in the television industry about what makes for a good streaming show versus what makes for a more traditional network show, cable show. Or if it isn't that, if it's still just kind of a show-by-show basis of do we have interest in putting this on our air or on our platform or whatever the case might be?
MICHAEL: I think it is a show-by-show, on a show-by-show basis, but I do think what we're seeing on the streaming side, what we're seeing from Amazon studio and Netflix, even some of the original productions for Hulu—they're affecting what we're seeing on the broadcast network side. For example, there was a time if you were to watch one of the big broadcasters, a show on one of those networks, sometimes you're going to get a repeat, but now we're finding that we're airing original episodes week after week after week because the audience has become more accustomed to binge-watching. Like we'll watch 10 episodes, 13 episodes over a weekend. We want to know what's going to happen, what will the outcome of that season be, and then we'll wait another year for the next season. As a result, it has, I think, forced the broadcasters to say, okay, we need to air these episodes sooner. We're seeing shorter orders; instead of 22 episodes, now we're seeing short orders of 13 episodes on the networks and no repeats really. People want to see original episodes, so it's really interesting to see how the streaming services are influencing what we do on the network or what the broadcast networks do.
TED: My own family included in this—and you may have heard one of my children yelling in the background, and anyone listening to this who's wondering what those thud thuds are every now and then, we're in the Duncan Student Center at Notre Dame, and those are people I think lifting weights above us, dropping the free weights. Not literally above us, on a floor above us.
MICHAEL: And rock climbing.
TED: And rock climbing. Yes. There’s a lot going on in this space. So we're a house that, we're cord-cutters. We get our content, most of it, we have Netflix, but we have Hulu live, and we stream things that way. I know NBC owns a share of Hulu. Where do you see that relationship between streaming television and more traditional television going over the next decade? It’s certainly changed a lot of things already, and you were just talking about some of the impact on what kind of content gets produced. I'm wondering even maybe what might change more for us as consumers of that content in the coming years as a result of broadcast television, cable television, it's not the only way to access these things anymore.
MICHAEL: Even my children are watching programs on devices. You know, my son was watching a Netflix documentary that I saw on the television, and just the other day, I'm like, what are you watching? And he's watching the same documentary, but he's watching on his iPad. I said, you don't want to see it on the big screen? He’s like, no, this is fine, had his earplugs in. So it's hard to say. I guess I think things will continue to evolve. I do think one of the many ways broadcast networks can remain relevant is to continue to produce live content. I think we'll see more musicals, which I think is really brilliant with how NBC brought the live musicals to television—or maybe I should say, brought back live musicals to television. They have become kind of these family events, you know, things where people can look forward to, and they do really well. Sports obviously does really well, another live event, sports do really well for broadcast networks. But it's really interesting. I don't know, I haven't figured it out yet.
I don't know how it will affect our series, scripted shows. We're seeing even more unscripted. Big finales—World of Dance, and The Voice, and even more, to the point where Universal Television Alternative Studio was launched maybe about two years ago, and they're developing so much in house and just making phenomenal shows that are attracting an audience so quickly. So I think we'll see more of that.
Another way that networks have changed is there used to be this model where you'll see original shows get launched in September—you know, the new fall lineup. Now shows are being launched, even scripted shows, are being launched in the summer. I think Marlon is a show that's a good example that premieres in the summer. So again, that goes back to how the streaming services have really influenced what we do on the network side. Shows are being produced and shot all year long now. And as a result, shows are being premiered throughout the year and not just on that fall schedule or even as a midseason replacement.
TED: Shifting gears on you a little bit: In addition to your work as a studio executive, you're half, one-half of a husband-and-wife filmmaking team with writer-director Christine Swanson. You have your own independent production company, Faith Filmworks, and I'm wondering what do the two of you look for there in terms of the projects that you're trying to develop through your own company?
MICHAEL: I would say heartwarming films. Movies that can move you, movies that are values-based, character-driven stories, and movies that you can walk away from thinking about, hopefully giving you a little bit more hope about life or relationships or family. Movies that can encourage you and inspire you. Those are some of the things that I think all of the movies that we—my wife, Christine, has written in the past and directed in the past and projects that I've been a part of through Faith Filmworks have all embodied. Just feel-good movies.
TED: And I know you, I mean you won your Emmy there for The Wayman Tisdale Story, which is—I’m sure you’ve been congratulated many times, but that's a pretty, that's a pretty cool accomplishment.
MICHAEL: Thank you.
TED: Pretty cool feather to have in your cap.
MICHAEL: When I think of The Wayman Tisdale Story, that was a project that I got involved with a little later in the process, and Brian Schodorf was the writer and director of the project, and he came to me. And when I saw what this project could do and saw some—actually, he sent me some clips of what he had filmed already. I watched it, and it just brought tears to my eyes, and I felt that Wayman’s story was a story that had to be told and that more people should see that kind of helps shape their perspective and help us all to understand one, how fragile life is, how we should live each day to the fullest because tomorrow's not promised to any of us.
And probably more important about Wayman’s story specifically and Wayman himself was when you watched this documentary, and as he’s battling cancer, and eventually he has his leg amputated. He still had this infectious smile, and this victorious demeanor because he understood that his faith in God would carry him. He felt that even despite all that he was going through, he never let it get to him. And I always say, you cannot watch The Wayman Tisdale Story and wake up and have a bad day. You know what I mean? He lost his life to cancer, but I think his struggle gave so much glory to God. I mean, he still created music, he still went on tour, eventually he went on tour in a wheelchair because he lost his leg.
TED: For people who don't know, he was an NBA basketball player, but as a musician at the same time—I mean really diverse interests and really accomplished in at least two very distinct fields.
MICHAEL: Yeah. So I just thought it was important to share that story, to help tell Wayman’s story—one to honor him. But I also felt to glorify God through his life and through watching his life and how he lived so gracefully, especially toward the last few years of his life.
TED: Is there one thing, or could you point to one thing—because you kind of have your foot in, they're very similar worlds, but also different, complementary, with an independent production company, studio production at NBCUniversal—if there was one thing that you could change about the current production model process in Hollywood, could you point to something that you wish was done differently? Whether it was identifying new voices or whatever that might be. Or is it a pretty efficient machine in terms of how it works?
MICHAEL: Everything can be more efficient. And that is one of the things that I task myself with. How can we do things better, even better? How can we improve things? How can we become even more efficient? Diversity is really important to me. So sometimes, especially on the studio side or the Hollywood, this is just across the board, there are a lot of cliques. You may have heard, the boys club or you know, sometimes you may have difficulty trying to navigate the industry if you want to be a crew member or really any facet of our business—it's a very close-knit, kind of closed-off business. So I try to help spread the wealth, if you will.
And internships are really important, and giving people opportunities who may not already know people who work within the business, to help them find a job, to help mentor people. That's really important to me. And the wonderful thing about this is that I work for a company that also believes that this is very important, and we put things in place to help facilitate more diversity and diverse voices and diverse crews and all those things. But it's not easy. It's not always easy. But that's something that I think we can continue to improve and that I personally work on.
TED: It’s my last question. It is the most hard-hitting question that my wife who is sitting back there, I think she would punch me when we were done with this if I did not ask you this: What can you tell us about what's going to happen in season three of The Good Place?
MICHAEL: Nothing.
TED: Nothing?
MICHAEL: I can’t mention anything. You just buckle up. Hold onto your seat.
TED: If you don't watch this show, you really should. I feel like the two of us, we go to bat for—not that it needs anyone to go to bat for it—but anyone that we talk to that’s like, oh, I haven't seen it, it's like, no, you need to go watch it right now.
MICHAEL: Yes. And watch it again. And again.
TED: So if you can’t tell us anything, do you remember how that show was pitched? What led to it? How it was summarized in terms of NBC saying, okay, we're gonna give this a shot? Because it is really kind of a unique concept.
MICHAEL: It's very unique, and I wasn't involved in the development of it or in the early—it was pitched to NBC, so I wasn't in those very early pitch meetings, but I got involved when NBC decided to order it from Universal Television to series. And again, I should go back to Mike Schur, who created The Good Place. So I’ve worked with Mike on so many shows now, from Parks and Rec to Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and he's one of the EPs on Master of None. So Mike is probably one of the best showrunners in our industry. And what I love about him from a production standpoint is he is very production-minded. Although he doesn’t stifle his writing, but he's smart enough to know how to write to fit the budgets that we've been given to work within, which is always wonderful just from my perspective.
But most importantly is the track record that he has. He was also one of the writers on The Office, and he wrote on Saturday Night Live years ago. So he is an NBC baby. His career, everything he's done in his career has been with our company. So when he pitched the show, I'm not sure if anyone in that room quite understood what was going on in his mind. He's also one of the best pitchers that I've listened to as well, but I'm sure it was exciting and I'm sure there was a lot of head-scratching at the end of it, but because of his track record, and his vision for each show that he's been a part of, I think they knew to bet on this guy because they knew that wherever he took us would be interesting. It would be groundbreaking. People would be talking about it, and it would be smart. It would be smart comedy.
TED: It’s very smart.
MICHAEL: Yeah, it wouldn't be a show where—I think it's important not to dumb movies and television, you don't have to dumb anything down for your audience. The audience is very intelligent.
TED: And this is a show, for people who aren't familiar with it, where you have a group of people who have gone to heaven because they were good in their past life, and so that's the Good Place. And there's one woman, Eleanor, who knows there was a mess-up and she wasn't supposed to be there, and that's where it takes off from. A lot of philosophy, very fitting at a place like Notre Dame, a lot of talk of philosophy.
MICHAEL: I should also mention that Mike Schur, lucky for him, is married to J.J. Philbin, who is a Notre Dame alumna. So he has a little Notre Dame connection, as well.
The Good Place was a series that was—we didn't do a pilot, you know, most times you do a pilot and then you wait to see if it's going to be picked up by that network. The Good Place was a show that went straight to series, 13 episodes out the door. And I remember shooting that first episode, we had like flying shrimp, a lot of visual effects, and I personally hoped that this show would do well on a broadcast network because you have to suspend your belief a lot. Cable channels were doing this, obviously shows on Netflix. This was a very different show for a network, but I knew that if audiences gave the show time and go along for this ride, the payoff would be great.
TED: It's huge.
MICHAEL: And it has been huge, and people have really embraced this show and want more. And I think we've even found an additional audience through Netflix. The show has since begun streaming on Netflix, and now we're shooting season three now, and I'm excited about that. And so unfortunately I can't tell you anything.
TED: If you need someone to look at screeners or anything, you have my email address.
MICHAEL: I should also say this just to give you context: This is one of the few shows that I've worked on where the scripts are not released even internally to many people. So it's very—things are very quiet about this show. That's because we don't want to spoil anything for you. We want you to really enjoy it.
TED: I was trying to be very careful when I was summarizing it not to spoil anything, so I understand that.
MICHAEL: It's a fun show to work on.
TED: Michael Swanson. Thank you very much, thank you to those of you who came out and listened.
MICHAEL: Thank you, Ted.
TED: Yeah, that's our show
TED: With a Side of Knowledge is a production of the Office of the Provost at the University of Notre Dame. For more, visit provost.nd.edu/podcast.