Alec Bergâs television credits include Seinfeld where he was a writer and executive producer, and Curb Your Enthusiasm where he currently serves as a writer, executive producer and director. Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images. Can you just take a look at the script and see?" I’d imagine there are a billion Modern Family specs out there now so maybe you don’t want to be number one-billion-and-one? AFF’s Young Filmmakers Program introduces the arts of screenwriting and filmmaking to young people, ages 9-18, and provides them with venues for developing their storytelling talents. I'm a huge fan." INSIDER: And last but not least, is Big Head getting dumber every year? Until you have to sit in a room and be wholly responsible for every beat of the story and a draft, you don't have to do all the work. Aspiring television writer Christopher Levi is our interviewer. Berg: Dave [Mandel] had recommended us to Robert Smigel, we sent a bunch of material in, we didn't hear back for months. As luck would have it, the show we were working on got canceled, so we ended up going to Conan for a few months, which was great. You spend two years all in on a movie, and then Thursday at five o'clock, they call and tell you whether it worked or not. INSIDER: "Silicon Valley" is like a a fictional version of a specific niche in business. Alec Berg is an American comedy writer. I'm supposed to buy this guy lunch?" It was basically the number one show ever, and it had just arrived in that space when we got on. Sometimes they go, "Well, I guess if you said it was this or that." There was no sitting around a table doing any of that. It's one of these things where when I was doing "The Dictator" we would just do a lot of research about dictators. Subscriber The Playwriting Competition is open to full-length stage plays and gives playwrights a chance to explore our film and television conference. Berg: He was the hub of the wheel, writing wise. Do we have a responsibility to fake the tech business as a more gender inclusive place, or is our role to hold up a mirror to it and hopefully satirize and make jokes about it? "Cheers," I think as a rule, used to do four scenes in the first act and three scenes in the second act, or something like that. "Look at the board there. Berg: When we were putting the show together, at a certain point we knew we wanted just a quick brief credit sequence. How do you want to do this?" Berg: Yeah, pretty much. It's one of those things where it's just, I don't know. Itâs been six seasons and that felt like a good amount. Alec Berg at the 2011 Austin Film Festival. We started talking about it, and about what the series would be. The "Silicon Valley" opening credits sequence is packed with tech jokes. For us, it's a failure for us as satirists that we haven't figured out more interesting ways of satirizing and making comedy hay out of those issues. Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by the law. You would start laying out the episode, and you'd get a first act, and you'd bring Larry and Jerry into your office, and you'd show them the whiteboard, and you'd walk them through the beats, and they would say, "Okay, that's four scenes but that should be one scene. Maybe we should just do a couple of episodes where they're flush and everything going their way." INSIDER: How did you get to where you are now, and specifically how did you get into comedy? It was all done by yourself. A lot more losing? At a certain point, we're trying to just make something that's funny and entertaining. It also makes it increasingly difficult to write the show, because you have to let the characters succeed to an extent, or people are just going to get frustrated. Mike will actually say he felt like we were a few years too late and maybe we had missed the curve on doing a show about tech. The honest answer is we didn't even really know who Peter Thiel was when we did season one, and then people kept saying that the Peter Thiel character, and we started looking at Peter Thiel video and were like, "Oh, I can see why people are saying that." Getting back to TV that shoots in LA was like, "Look, I can work full time here, and I can sleep in my own bed, and I can see my family." In TV, because TV is driven by volume, network shows are 22 episodes a year, somebody's got to generate all of that. I also understand why people are screamers and throw tantrums, because there's an enormous amount of insecurity, and it's a way of venting a lot of that. That's the simplest advice you could give. I don't know. It was like we were always behind. There are a bunch of companies that do opening title animation and graphics. He also co-wrote the screenplays for the films The Cat in the Hat , EuroTrip and The Dictator . It doesn't seem like it's an all-American story at all, and yet it had such a clear voice, and it was so true to itself, and it was incredibly funny, and I do think that Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld brought in a new style of storytelling. Hader is nominated in Best Comedy Actor and ⦠So if you think Curb is a show you can write well, go for it. Basically what happened was they did the pilot, and I guess they wanted to go forward with the pilot, but they needed somebody to come in and work in partnership with Mike, to make the trains run. Characters act on their basest, most petty instincts for self gain, they get caught, they lie, they dig themselves in deeper, they get caught again, they lie or blame someone else, and in the end the entire thing blows up and they're miserable. INSIDER: I covered tech for year and years and years, and all of a sudden it's like, "Wait, hold on a second everybody laughing about Silicon Valley." At the end of the first season I showed a few episodes to a friend of mine, a woman who works in tech, and she said, "You've got to put more women in this show. That led to a tiny thing, which led to another thing, which led to another thing. The one-hour radio program & our podcast both feature the creative minds behind True Detective, The Graduate & more. - Ron Howard, 2009 Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award Recipient. Berg: After "Seinfeld," [Jeff Schaffer, Dave Mandel, and I] started doing a bunch of movie work, because movie work wasn't covered under the terms of our TV deals. Why am I investing all of my energy in these people if they're just going to fail?" The only thing that you can talk down about the show and about Alec Berg, the showrunner for the first couple years, is that it's cyclical. The weekly, 30-minute television series features interviews with today’s leading creators, writers and filmmakers. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty. We started to feel the same way about the tech business. I read reviews of "Ghost in the Shell," which just came out. We met with these two guys, Tom Gammill and Max Pross — they were Lampoon guys who were 11 or 12 years ahead of us. What do we need to put in to make this real?". At the end of the lunch, the check showed up and Larry was really annoyed that that guy didn't reach for the check. and we said, "Well, we have this other job in LA." Berg: Constantly. I'm sure he could do it if he chose to, it's just not his passion. We ended up doing the subsequent three or four seasons. I'm sure he could if he wanted to, but he just didn't have that. Just in terms of comedy school, it was amazing training. It's not episodic the way "Seinfeld" was, where every episode was essentially a reset. I've got "Silicon Valley," and I'm doing this new Bill Hader show, and Jeff has "Curb." He just kept coming in more and more. You could have kept doing a lot of that instead of the avenue you went down. Berg: The analogy I guess that I've come closest to is it's like if you're a rock band, nad each season is a new album. The flip side of that is we always talk about how this is a show about outsiders. We got friendly with them, and when their show got picked up they said, "Hey, we're buying some freelance scripts, so if you pitch us some ideas, maybe we can buy a script from you.". That was just the structure of the show. It's funny, he used to throw these little things in about how he was adopted, and he had many foster parents. He kicked us out. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. He's their grandmother, basically. Berg: I think was when we got hired at Seinfeld. No, no, no, look, it is a constant discussion. How season four tackles structural changes, Also, if they don't ever succeed, at a certain point it just makes you think, "Well, maybe they're just stupid and they don't deserve it. Then all of a sudden we got a call from Robert Smigel and he was saying, "Hey, do you guys want to work on the show?" Berg: I grew up listening to my parent's comedy records, a lot of the stuff that, instead of listening to a lot of music, I was listening to. At first, he would come in once a day for two minutes. and they go, "Well, that would never happen." Check out our current opportunities below. Basically what happened was they did the pilot, and I guess they wanted to go forward with the pilot, but they needed somebody to come in and work in partnership with Mike, to make the trains run. If the show was just 50% women, what good are we doing? We're definitely paying attention to a lot of what's going on, but one of the challenges of our show is we can't really be topical because ideally the show is written before we shoot it, and we shoot it months before it airs. He was like, "Oh, I was told you were available," and we said "we were five months ago when we sent that material.". You must have JavaScript enabled to fill out this form. It was pretty awesome. The what happens is the comedy, as opposed to it's a straight story with comedy put on top. Where is the chink in his armor that somebody can exploit? Jeff and Dave an I have expanded over the HBO schedule. Alec Berg is an American comedy writer, best known as a writer for the sitcom Seinfeld and co-creator and executive producer of Barry with Bill Hader. He is a delightful knot of anxiety, and he is just a lovely human being, and also probably one of the most skilled improvisers on the face of the planet. We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so. – David McKenna (BLOW, AMERICAN HISTORY X). You get a lot of at-bats, and some you get doubles or triples, and some you strike out, but it's about average. He's like, "Well, I didn't say I would pay for it. ALEC BERG: It started going this way the more we did the Macbeth stuff in the middle of the season, where the question was, "Can you ever live down ⦠T.J. Miller Says He Doesn't Like 'Silicon Valley' Showrunner Alec Berg He also suggested he doesn't get along with Thomas Middleditch in an unhinged new interview A lot of people who were in the movie business, because they thought that it was more conducive to high quality, more money per minutes spent, a lot of those people have migrated to high end TV. Berg: I think Jeff and I would reach out and just say, "Hey, we're enormous fans. Jeff and I worked for like two weeks straight, and we went in with just a massive, very thoroughly thought-out stuff. Shop our incredible merchandise now! That randomness of the movie business is terrifying. Austin Film Festival is a 501-3 organization. Every once in a while we'll start off a season going, "Oh yeah, they succeeded at the end of the last season. We spent a few months just calling people and trying to meet anybody that would tolerate us for 15 minutes. I think that's a credit to the realism of the program. As a writer, you have much more creative control of those. HBO. We had done facets of all of it before, but being in charge of the whole ship was, it's pretty terrifying. There was [also] this guy in Turkmenistan whose doctors told him to quit smoking so he made smoking illegal in the country so that he could quit smoking. You had a great resume. Berg: It was insane. We're comedians. We were number one or number two every week. From jury awards to audience awards, AFF hands out over 40 awards each year! That's always very flattering to hear, because it's just means that you've created what feels like a very real, three dimensional character. It was us and "Home Improvement" that would trade off who had better numbers that week. I think there's a joke in this year's credits with Uber and Lyft about Didi — the Chinese Uber that Uber ceded the market to. Subscribe to "Showrunners" here, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more interviews with today's biggest showrunners. Absolutely. This is what I'd learned from him more than anything, and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is exactly the same thing. I said, "I had a few thoughts about the pilot. He said, "Actually, I have one empty office in my suite of offices. Berg: We try not to do one to one corollaries, but we definitely are paying attention. It is an incredibly fertile area. Look, season one, at the end of the season, the guys go to TechCrunch Disrupt. It would have been so much better to not get paid a penny than to be paid a hundred dollars an episode, but we ended up doing it. Berg: I got a call from Sue Naegle, who had been my agent for years, and she had left the agent business to go to HBO. We always joke it's like Lucy and the football with Charlie Brown. We lived in a literally flea-infested apartment with no furniture. Berg: We have to figure that out. We gave it to Larry and Larry was going over to a rehearsal, so Larry walked over to the stage with the script in his hand, and we followed behind him because we wanted to watch him read this thing. There's no women in those. This charitable act had reduced itself to bitterness and he left with a lousy taste in his mouth. Mike Judge and Alec Berg. Then the next year we came back and officially came on as writers on the show. Without being sappy at all, "Silicon Valley" does have a story, and it does have character development. It was called "Ugly Americans" when we sold it, which I still contend is a much better title than "Eurotrip." Alec Berg (left) and Mike Judge (right) are the cocreators of "Silicon Valley." We have gotten a lot of scrutiny and some flack, some deserved, some I think not so, about where are the women, and why aren't you doing more stories about how there are not women in tech. She was basically asking me for my thoughts. She was grooming me. You would compact and compact and compact. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Gettu. For inquiries, contact Kelly Lafargue marketing@austinfilmfestival.com o 512.478.4795 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Austin, TX - May 18, 2020 - Austin Film Festival & Writers Conference (AFF), the premier film festival recognizing the writers’ contributions to... We're excited for our Festival & Conference in October, but if this season has made us aware of anything - it’s that we don’t want to wait. I think we have to figure out some new twist. who did the titles every year, came in and pitched up two three ideas. These cookies are used to store information, such as the time that the current visit occurred, whether the visitor has been to the site before and what site referred the visitor to the web page. Jerry was enormously involved, but Jerry was also on stage a lot of the time, rehearsing and performing.When Jerry was on stage, Larry was in the office, in the engine room, making the scripts work. I guess you could say it's finding new interesting ways for them to fail, but also new interesting ways for them to succeed, that doesn't make them the high school quarterback who gets the girl, and the car. I'd be happy to tell you." He has been ⦠That should happen sooner." ALEC BERG: Oh yes, of all the backs of heads youâve seen this year, mine is certainly top 50. ", Then all of a sudden we got a call from Robert Smigel and he was saying, "Hey, do you guys want to work on the show?" 03/05/2012 News. Listen to the episode to hear the highlights from our interview, and keep reading below for the full conversation. Comedy writers Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer and David Mandel began working with Larry David on Seinfeld, and rejoined him on Curb Your Enthusiasm beginning with season five. Berg: Anybody. ©2021 Austin Film Festival • Austin Film Festival is a Not for Profit 501(c)(3) Corporation. AFF offers a badge and pass options for everyone! A lot of people say, "Oh yeah, I have Gilfoyle at my company." Steven Hyden Twitter Cultural Critic. Berg: I have one weird snippet of memory [when] I was probably in second grade, of saying something and a girl in my class started laughing. They sent over the paperwork, and for ten episodes of "Curb" they offered us each a thousand dollars. a fictional version of a specific niche in business. Alec Berg, Producer: Barry. I do get that a lot. We're in danger of going to the well a little too often with him. Jeff Schaffer and I moved out to LA after college to try and write. Eh, I don't know if I'm buying that maybe." Site by:BeiBay• Custom icons & base colors by Mosak.Sponsors.Privacy Policy.Store & Refund Policy.AFF Policies.Contact.Sitemap.On Story. Ultimately at the end it's just that's not fun to watch. To me, the one guiding principal of all of it is just honestly don't be an asshole. That was the first job we ever got. HBO. We ended up helping write season five of "Curb." Facebook Twitter Flipboard uproxx.it. In fact, on "Curb" we didn't even write dialogue really. Listen to the episode to hear the highlights from our interview, and keep reading below for the full conversation. We get a call from HBO business affairs, and HBO says, "You know, we'd like to pay you for your work on the season." We have to be careful to amalgamate a lot of those stories. He wrote for the sitcom Seinfeld and is co-creator and executive producer of Barry with Bill Hader. It becomes a negotiation in a weird way. Whatever you think." We did a "Curb" season in New York, so I was gone for four months. We were completely happy with that, and then there was a funny thing that happened at the end of the year. We were there for the last four seasons of that show, so we were there for just over half the episodes. Is that interesting to watch? I'm touched by God and I have a gift." ", He was like, "Oh, I was told you were available," and we said "we were five months ago when we sent that material.". Like I said, it has to be familiar but you have to do familiar in an unfamiliar way. For example, I spent a year plus of my life working on ["Eurotrip"] and I learned a ton. We started doing a bunch of little rewrites, and it was easy to get these one week gigs, because people wanted Seinfeld writers to write clever dialogue. He was just reading it for structure, which is what happens.
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