How did a nice Harvard graduate ever wind up writing for a show like the Sopranos?
Well, it helps if you have a mentor like Spike Lee to help you out.
Todd Kessler is a graduate of the Harvard University Writing program (class of 94) who wanted to be a play write. He thought that writing for the stage, while not a money making endeavor, was a way to express himself creatively and satisfy his desire to reach a select audience. Very select!
Things didn't quite work out that way!
What happened was that when Kessler was a senior at Harvard, he signed up for a screenwriting course taught by none other than Writer/Director Spike Lee of Clockers and Jungle Fever fame. Lee used to fly in from New York City every Friday to teach at Harvard, and then fly back. Kessler said that having Spike Lee as a teacher was the best experience he ever had. It made him want to write movies.
Kessler was a fan of Lee's and decided that since Lee had office hours for an hour after class, that he might (if he was lucky) be able to pick the writers brain for ten minutes.
That wasn't the case.
Kessler was the only one who ever signed-up for office hours. Ever. The other students were either too scared, too intimidated, or too shy. Which left one precious hour every week for Todd Kessler, Harvard senior to have the undivided attention of Spike Lee, award-winning writer and director. Those meetings changed the course of Kessler's life forever.
After graduating from Harvard, Spike Lee offered the young writer a job reading and providing feedback on the hundreds of scripts Lee receives each month. Kessler said no. He asked Kessler what he wanted to do and Kessler responded that he wanted to write movies. Lee said okay. Within a year, Kessler had, with Spike Lee's help, a script optioned and another about to be sold. Not bad for a 23 year old guy right out of college!
Shortly after these successes, Kessler decided to try his hand at writing for television, and landed a job with the HBO hit The Sopranos. He started as a writer, and became a Writer/Producer. When I asked Kessler to explain the added responsibility that a Producer title brings, he said, "More hours and more meetings."
Writing for the small screen is a lot different than writing for motion pictures. The way Kessler explained it is, when you write for TV, the writer is king, has a great deal of creative input, can create policy, and is a very respected part of the team. In the movies, it's the exact opposite. If a writer sells a script to Hollywood, it's gone. Finito. Bye-bye. In other words, the original writer is usually out and other writers are brought in to re-write the entire script.
That's why Todd Kessler writes for television.
After a great three-year run on The Sopranos, and several Emmy nominations, Kessler and his brother (another Harvard alumni) are teaming up to create a TV series of their own.
I can't wait to see what happens next.
Stay tuned.