Shonda Rhimes, the woman behind TV series like Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and Bridgerton, explained what the differences are between working for a network like ABC and a streaming platform like Netflix.
Shonda Rhimesthe mother of many of our favorite TV series, from Grey’s Anatomy a Scandalyes Bridgerton a Inventing Annarecently spoke of the difference in working for a television broadcaster such as ABC and a streaming platform like Netflix.
“They are two completely different machines” Shonda Rhimes told the microphones of Deadline, fresh from yet another television success a few days after the release of Queen Carlotta, the prequel spin-off of Bridgerton.
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“ABC was a very powerful and very multilayered institution. There is a sea of bureaucracy to navigate. And the process was a ‘No’ as an initial answer, and then you have to find a way to make it a ‘yes’“.
“It was like this for Scandal too, to start the live-tweeting they initially said ‘but why should they do something like this? No.’. Then, finally, we came to ‘Yes’, but we did everything ourselves, until they saw it“.
“We’ve accomplished a lot in the way of exploring women’s right to choose, stuff that I thought was just about storytelling, but turned out to be kind of a silent battle on my part to get things done on TV“.
And when you compare the way platforms do it, Rhimes explains that for example “Netflix was a newborn in this business” when their collaboration began.
However, they seem to apply an opposite approach…
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Not just differences of ideas
“You start with a ‘Yes’, and then figure out how to make it happen. And the way you do a place that says ìYes’ right from the start has a lot to do with your enthusiasm for the project” continues the producer, who reveals how the differences are significant in terms of budget as well.
Someone apparently had in fact revealed to her that the budget for The Crown was 12 million dollars per episode: “I couldn’t stop thinking about it… It was so much money! Think of all that could be done in such a big playground!“.
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But what Shonda does, the audience comments on, usually with enthusiasm and approval…and, very often, with suggestions of their own.
How much has it influenced the will of the fans on the realization of the shows, at least as regards what depends on Shonda herself?
“I think I’m quite notorious for being someone who says they don’t pay attention to fans” he claims “But I don’t mean that in a negative sense. I mean, the only way I know how to tell a story is to be a kind of guardian of the story, so I can’t be influenced by people’s external reactions to the story. It doesn’t help me in trying to figure out how to express my creativity at work“.
