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Due to the internet, showrunners have become more of celebrities. Especially at cons

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I'm going to have to be honest with y'all. I have not loved each and every Comic-Con at Home panel I've virtually attended. Some, like the Lovecraft Country panel or the Upload panel, have featured engaging moderators and participants who were game. Others have...not. So I approached the horror showrunners Comic-Con panel with trepidation. Thankfully, though, my nervousness was all for naught. The panel was great!

Who Was on the Horror Showrunners Comic-Con Panel?

The talk was way more fun to watch than this sedate screenshot shows, I promise.

First of all, Tananarive Due moderated the panel. You might know from her academic work, her writing, or her appearances in films like the documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. The horror showrunners who comprised the panel were Jami O'Brien ( NOS4A2), Meredith Averill (), and the legendary Greg Nicotero (). It also included Nick Antosca and Don Mancini, who worked together on Channel Zero and are now working on the upcoming Child's Play TV adaptation Chucky. (Mancini created the Child's Play franchise, if you didn't know.)

No Spoilers, But Smart Talk about Horror

Creepshow, image via Shudder

Let's face it, some of these panels can be a little anti-climactic, especially if they're for upcoming shows or movies. After all, none of these folks want to give away the game. So you ask them what we can look forward to and they issue vague statements about exciting plotlines and surprising developments.

Perhaps knowing this, and having several showrunners on at once, Due wisely steered away from simple plot talk. Instead, she focused on both macro and micro issues of horror TV. For instance, Due and the showrunners discussed the ongoing popularity of scary shows, particularly in recent years.

The Sea Change in Horror

As Antosca said, "Historically, you see horror having a renaissance in moments of cultural unrest. You look at the movie that made me want to tell stories and be in the horror space which was Night of the Living Dead, which I saw probably at eight or nine, way too young to understand that it was a microcosm of society and this group of people who were like, you know, a set of different parts of America beset by an other. And there's a whole allegory there. I think the best horror, the horror that we love and that really lasts is about something else." He also mentioned that our current moment is the perfect time for horror, saying, "And I think that we have an opportunity in horror now sometimes to explore the sense of pervasive dread all around us, which is more true right now than ever."

you-know-who, image via United Artists

They also discussed the limitations or lack thereof in making horror on TV. Antosca, for instance, was a writer on the network show Hannibal. Some of the images on that show were more outré than those in iconic horror films. (As such, I shan't display any of the murders from the show on this family website.) Nicotero pointed out that another example would be the difference between George Romero's Living Dead movies and The Walking Dead today.

Mancini, who also worked on Hannibal, attributes part of the change to "stylization...the implication of violence." As he put it, "The fin that is cutting across the surface of the water is arguably just as terrifying as seeing the jaws clamping down on someone."

But sometimes you just need spice. So rest assured that Chucky is going to curse, even on Syfy.

To Binge or Not to Binge: Horror Showrunners Comic-Con Panel on the Streaming Wars

Locke & Key, image via Netflix

This being the modern age, though, talk about TV unsurprisingly turns to talk about streaming. Due then asked the showrunners what they preferred as viewers. Do they like to swallow a show whole or watch it weekly?

Opinions, of course, were mixed. Nicotero says he likes both. He remembers the pleasure and anticipation of reading TV Guide for hints. Averill said that she loves binge-watching. However, she also appreciates a show that can keep you coming back weekly, like Channel Zero. Antosca agreed with Averill, except without the praise for his own show-that would have been weird. He also likes Hulu's hybrid model, where they start a season by dropping a few episodes, then switch to weekly for the rest.

Antosca's colleague Mancini and O'Brien, though, like to keep it classic. Mancini said, for example, "It's nice to have those water-cooler moments to inject that into the culture when you have that week-long pause." O'Brien answered more as a showrunner, saying, "I do think that episodes stick with you better when you watch them week to week, than when you just kind of binge the whole thing." She also said that her writing staff works "...really hard on making these episodes in addition to making the series-long arc." No shocker, then, that she wants us to savor them.

Hear from the New Masters of (TV) Horror

This, of course, is just a summary of some of the topics Due and the showrunners considered. During the talk, they chewed on several other aspects of making spooky TV today, in addition to talking influences. All in all, it was a reminder that there are real folks behind the TV we watch and it's comforting to know that some of them, at least, care about what they're making.

Watch the panel yourself below. And watch Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror on Shudder.

What do you think about the state of horror TV today? Let us know your thoughts on social media or by yelling them in the comments below.
featured image of NOS4A2 via AMC
Salomé Gonstad is a freelance writer who grew up in the swampy wilds of south Alabama. She now splits her time between the Appalachian wilds (of Alabama) and the considerably more refined streets of New York City. When she's not yelling about pop culture on the internet, she's working on a supernatural thriller about her hometown. Also, we're pretty sure she's a werewolf.

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Horror Showrunners Comic-Con Panel A Fun Talk - Comic Years

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I'm going to have to be honest with y'all. I have not loved each and every Comic-Con at Home panel I've virtually attended. Some, like the Lovecraft Country panel or the Upload panel, have featured engaging moderators and participants who were game. Others have...not. So I approached the horror showrunners Comic-Con panel with trepidation.

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Online fandoms have created a culture in which requires showrunners to be more involved with fans

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Some gradually worked their way up to the top while other skyrocketed up the ladder

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Most showrunners burn out after 50, so what do they do next? Write a book? Work for someone that used to work for them?

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Editing is heartbreaking. You can't go back and reshoot scenes, so you're stuck with what you already filmed.

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Whedon ran three shows simultaneously: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly

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There is a "100% burnout rate" for showrunners. It's too good to quit, but too hard to do

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Period pieces are more costly. You have to dress the set with period accurate cars, buildings, etc. And, you have to make sure clothing and hairstyles are accurate as well.

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Ronald Moore stood his ground on how he wanted the script to be written against the studio's wishes, so they canceled the show.

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Wonder if this means that Ron will still be around for Roswell Season 3?

From Sci-Fi Wire:

9:00am ET, 5-April-01
Creative Split Sank Pern
Producer Ronald D. Moore-whose pilot for a Dragonriders of Pern TV series was abruptly dumped by The WB-told SCI FI Wire that the network pulled the plug only days before production was set to begin in a dispute over the show's creative direction. "It's dead," Moore said in an interview. "We were supposed to start shooting the day before yesterday [April 2]. We were very, very close. We were shooting in Santa Fe [N.M.] We had the cast. We had the production team. We had the CGI [computer graphics]. We had the whole enchilada, and they pulled the plug last Wednesday."

Moore said he had been trying to develop a serious adaptation of Anne McCaffrey's popular series of SF novels of the same name. But The WB ordered a "dialogue polish" from a second writer, and when Moore saw the rewrite, he felt the series had changed "fundamentally." "It was a different show," he said. "I had tried ... to keep the spirit of the books alive ... and make it a classy, interesting show. And ... what was evident in the draft they commissioned, they wanted a different show. It was more Buffy-esque and Xena-esque. It was something they felt more comfortable with on The WB. ... There wasn't a way to split the difference. Ultimately, they decided we should just let the project go. It was their decision. It was very disappointing for everybody. ... A lot of people put a lot of hard work into it."

Moore did not sound angry about the decision, though he was clearly dismayed at the pilot's cancellation just as it was set to shoot. "We ... had to shutter the offices, let the crew go, and it was too bad. But ultimately, I understand and respect the position of the network, because it's their network. But I had a responsibility to the material and the source of the material. ... And I think the fans-while they may be disappointed that the series won't go forward-would have been more disappointed if we had made a series that contradicted the world that Anne had created and was so wonderful."

Among the scenes fans will never see: A recreation of the books' Ruatha Hold in a New Mexico box canyon; an interpretation of Bendan Weyr as a series of pueblo-like cliff dwellings; and the birth of a dragon under the night sky and a blanket of Southwestern stars.

Moore said that Pern's complicated rights will likely prohibit the pilot's being picked up by another network this year or in its current incarnation. As for whether he'll try to mount an effort to revive the Pern series later on, he said, "I started talking about and looking for the rights to this series when I was [a writer] on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. ... The thought of doing it all over again is not something I'm eager to do at this moment. But maybe with a little time and distance, you never know. ... I have no regrets, and I'm glad Anne's property is still Anne's property and won't have been damaged in any way."

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Wonder if this means that Ron will still be around for Roswell Season 3? From Sci-Fi Wire: 9:00am ET, 5-April-01 Creative Split Sank Pern Producer Ronald D. Moore-whose pilot for a Dragonriders of Pern TV series was abruptly dumped by The WB-told SCI FI Wire that the network pulled the plug only days before production was set to begin in a dispute over the show's creative direction.

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"Life is serialized. Life is not a procedural."

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You need to pick you fights when arguing over scripts. You don't want to argue on everything because that will earn you a reputation

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Close all other doors until the only one left open leads to funny situations

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Most of the people in the documentary didn't think they'd be showrunners, but later on in life changed their minds

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A spec is a mock-up script of a preexisting show that showcases one's writing ability

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I've been getting a few questions relating to "what is a spec script", so here goes...

In its basic definition, a " spec script " is a screenplay written on "speculation" (that someone out there will want it). In other words, a script written out of the volition of its writer-without any kind of deal or monetary compensation in place.

Although similarly uncompensated, a spec script in television specifically refers to a " sample episode ". The goal of the TV spec script is to showcase your writing abilities.

If you are an aspiring drama writer, then you might write (for example) a Mad Men spec script. Your goal will therefore be to show that:
a) you can write a compelling, novel story; and
b) you can write within the Mad Men parameters, i.e. mimic an episode of the show.
That means that you need to write with the same format/structure as the show (e.g. four acts), and also be able to channel the showrunner's (Matthew Weiner's) "voice".

In recent years, spec pilots have overtaken spec scripts in terms of what executives and showrunners want to read for new hires. That doesn't mean you shouldn't write sample episode spec scripts!
Even outside of the TV writing fellowships, they are amazing exercises. In fact, your TV writing career will primarily be about your ability to write for a showrunner.

You can learn more about the "dos and donts" of writing TV spec scripts by checking: " Ten Spec Writing Rules (and why you should care) "

Spec pilots are a sub-division of spec scripts. Much like their counterparts, they are written unsolicited. They are here, once again, to show that you can write. This time though, with you own original well-executed ideas.

Note that spec pilots should not be written in the hopes of getting produced. There's only been a handful of spec pilots being made. One of those famously being Matthew Weiner's Mad Men. He was already established as a TV writer when he AMC bought it. He had used his Mad Men spec pilot as a writing sample to get on The Sopranos. And now others spec his show. The circle is complete.

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What's the difference between spec script and spec pilot? | TV Calling

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I've been getting a few questions relating to "what is a spec script", so here goes... In its basic definition, a " spec script " is a screenplay written on "speculation" (that someone out there will want it). In other words, a script written out of the volition of its writer-without any kind of deal or monetary compensation in place.

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Showrunners and great writers are not the same thing

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Most audiences don't understand how movies/tv shows are made

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focus on a season as a whole rather than individual episodes

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quality scripts on time

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there are always 6 episodes in progress at a time