Greg Weisman Interview Part Three: Writer and Story-Editor

About writer/story-editor relations, Greg says: “when people are in sync… the whole becomes more than the sum of the parts… if you’re self story-editing, you lose the opportunity to collaborate with another individual… who might provide additional ideas that make it better.” However, it can become “an effort of mutual compromise and homogenization, where you’re…not in sync with each other… not challenging each other… finally you wind up with nothing of interest in the story.”

Greg feels a good writing team also challenges its members “to create something greater than the sum of its parts.” Since the same pay often gets split amongst the members of a team, he states, “there’s no real financial advantage being a team, unless… you get the X and Y name and you’ve got them working on multiple, multiple shows… it becomes a brand… the brand can cover more territory and thus bring more money in. Mr. X is working on Show A and Ms. Y is working on Show B… it becomes a quantity thing. A true team, it’s not about quantity any more than an individual is about quantity.”

On his early partnership: “I think we were really challenging each other to do better work… we went off to do some separate things… not because the partnership was failing… we had these opportunities. Having done that, I wasn’t comfortable going back into the partnership, and I would say that was a failing on my part. I didn’t want to subsume myself in the way that it was before, even though that was a challenging partnership I was appreciating the challenge of my own work.”

About a writer’s education, Greg feels that (besides writing) you need to be willing to self-edit, take others’ notes, proofreading, and read extensively – this is classic as well as modern books, more than industry trades and newspapers. Also, watch contemporary and classic films and “look at the history of these mediums.” For animation, he recommends taking classes, reading animation scripts, and studying series to see “what works for you and what doesn’t.”

Thank you, Greg, for taking time to share.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic