When the first season of Mad Men won six Emmy Awards–including Best Drama and Best Writing For A Drama Series–in 2008, the temptation was to think of the show as an overnight success. After all, it seemingly came out of nowhere to become the first basic cable series to garner the Best Drama Emmy, and has since had repeat wins of that honor in ’09 and ’10. Yet while the series has blazed a trail, it’s been a long and winding path as touched upon by its creator/producer Matthew Weiner during a session on Mad Men at The Hollywood Reporter/Billboard Film & TV Music Conference last week in Los Angeles.
Weiner noted that he wrote the pilot 10 years ago while he was maintaining a full-time writing job on a sitcom. The Mad Men pilot became a creative means of expression and part of his dream to one day be in charge of a show as its creator. Weiner put much of his spare time into the project, noting that it had been an obsession, “my drug habit, my mistress.” This obsession pre-dated his putting pen to paper for Mad Men. Weiner shared that he bought a wristwatch three years before writing the pilot. He had the watch in mind for a character in the show (presumably that worn by the star ad man Don Draper character).
Weiner laughingly described himself back then as “delusional…buying a watch for a fictitious character.”
Among the first 20 or so people to read the pilot script was Weiner’s fellow panelist at the Film & TV Music Conference, composer David Carbonara. “He was my audience,” said Weiner of Carbonara who went on to score the pilot seven years after receiving that initial script.
Weiner values Carbonara’s contributions to the pilot and the ongoing series (which just wrapped season four), citing a scene in the Mad Men pilot: “Don [Draper] looks at his Purple Heart–and David, you have this thing with the Chinese flute and bombs blowing up in the background,” said Weiner. “It’s a really complicated cue that’s telling the audience, ‘You are going to be in this man’s head.’ He’s having a private moment and the music is going to let you experience that.”
Weiner also recalled a musical cue in the second episode for the Betty Draper character. He remembered thinking, ‘Oh, my God, Betty has music, and it’s melancholy and it’s got these little bells and all the shit that I love.”
Prior to Mad Men, Weiner enjoyed a tenure (’04-’07) on The Sopranos which saw him serve as a writer and eventually an exec producer as well on the show. He concluded his Sopranos duty on a Friday and embarked on Mad Men the next Monday once AMC committed to the project. He said this was the first pilot AMC had ever made (production house on the pilot was @radical.media) and it was after seeing the pilot that Lionsgate bought the show.
Thus far Weiner has turned out 52 episodes of Mad Men over four seasons. He sees a parallel between ad-makers and television series creators/writers/producers. “The advertising business is very similar to the TV show business,” he said, citing the shared bond of “a creative person who is on some level making compromises.” Weiner credited the ad industry with being “one of the few places where a creative person can make money,” adding that the inherent clash of accounts vs. creative and art vs. commerce bring another interesting dimension to the 1960s’ workplace in Mad Men.
Disney Pledges $15 million In L.A. Fire Aid As More Celebs Learn They’ve Lost Their Homes
The Pacific Palisades wildfires torched the home of "This Is Us" star Milo Ventimiglia, perhaps most poignantly destroying the father-to-be's newly installed crib.
CBS cameras caught the actor walking through his charred house for the first time, standing in what was once his kitchen and looking at a neighborhood in ruin. "Your heart just breaks."
He and his pregnant wife, Jarah Mariano, evacuated Tuesday with their dog and they watched on security cameras as the flames ripped through the house, destroying everything, including a new crib.
"There's a kind of shock moment where you're going, 'Oh, this is real. This is happening.' What good is it to continue watching?' And then at a certain point we just turned it off, like 'What good is it to continue watching?'"
Firefighters sought to make gains Friday during a respite in the heavy winds that fanned the flames as numerous groups pledged aid to help victims and rebuild, including a $15 million donation pledge from the Walt Disney Co.
More stars learn their homes are gone
While seeing the remains of his home, Ventimiglia was struck by a connection to his "This Is Us" character, Jack Pearson, who died after inhaling smoke in a house fire. "It's not lost on me life imitating art."
Mandy Moore, who played Ventimiglia's wife on "This Is Us," nearly lost her home in the Eaton fire, which scorched large areas of the Altadena neighborhood. She said Thursday that part of her house is standing but is unlivable, and her husband lost his music studio and all his instruments.
Mel Gibson's home is "completely gone," his publicist Alan Nierob confirmed Friday. The Oscar winner revealed the loss of his home earlier Friday while appearing on Joe Rogan's... Read More