Michael Mann had very little to do with the show?

[Miami Beau]

On 3/15/2022 at 7:00 PM, Mario Fuente said:

 

A question remains as to who the "Frank Holman" writer pseudonym was for on the final Vice episode.  I doubt it was Mann, who would not have been shy about participating had he done so.  I'm thinking it was Chuck Adamson, who could well have been rewritten by the then-current Vice producers and it would make sense for him to take his name off if he felt the writing no longer matched his intentions.

I always thought Michael Mann but you raise a great point. Given the Crime Story link, I’d say it’s either Mann, Gustavo Reininger or Adamson.

And I can believe maybe whoever it was, was involved early on but decided to remove their name after script changes. 

Edited July 27, 2022 by Miami Beau

[johnnyfarragut]

I remember a newspaper piece from 1986 where producer Brandon Tartikoff pointed to the problems of making the show in Miami while the production team remained in Los Angeles. He complained specifically about what was happening with the scripts: they left LA in pretty good shape, then changes were made on location without approval.

I doubt the drop in quality can be blamed entirely to the LA/Miami divide, but it definitely must have been a factor once Michael Mann wasn't watching the shop full time.

Edited April 17, 2023 by johnnyfarragut

[pahonu]

I don’t know all the details in this case, but for any network show of the era that filmed on location (meaning NOT the TMZ), the pre and post production was always in LA where the facilities and writers, editors, composers, etc… we’re located.  The production crew and talent was on location and that included the script supervisor.  
 

This was also true for shows like Magnum pi in Hawaii or earlier shows like The Streets of San Francisco.  The most basic definition is that the script supervisor is the editor’s and writer’s representative on set, while also helping the director and director of photography with overall continuity.  
 

Any changes to the script would go through the script supervisor and needed to be okayed by the others mentioned above no matter where the change originated.  The nature of these relationships would vary, of course, but that would be the process to maintain continuity.  Revisions that didn’t go through this process could cause ripple effects down the line and so were usually avoided.

This occasionally did happen, of course.  I recall once while filming at Marina Del Rey, we had to do a pickup shot from a previous script while filming that day’s pages in the current script.  I was in my first year as a PA and didn’t understand what the setup was until it was explained to me.  They needed the scene for continuity because a last minute script change had caused a continuity problem.  This only happened a couple of times in the two years I worked on the series.

 

 

[pahonu]

Accidental double post.  Oops!

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by pahonu

[johnnyfarragut]

Here's the piece I mentioned:

[Tom]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb johnnyfarragut:

I remember a newspaper piece from 1986 where producer Brandon Tartikoff pointed to the problems of making the show in Miami while the production team remained in Los Angeles. He complained specifically about what was happening with the scripts: they left in LA in pretty good shape, then changes were made on location without approval.

I doubt the drop in quality can be blamed entirely to the LA/Miami divide, but it definitely must have been a factor once Michael Mann wasn't watching the shop full time.

The scripts in season 2 were very simple compared to season 1 and 3 and had less substance than style and I don´t see how anyone could have ruined a good script base from L.A. by some changes in Miami as insinuated here by Tartikoff. Also there is no way to make changes unnoticed by LA personnel like the script supervisor or the supervising producer even with MM away.

[pahonu]

27 minutes ago, johnnyfarragut said:

Here's the piece I mentioned:

Thanks for that.  
Tartikoff is describing exactly the problems I was explaining with having the production away from LA.  Having to reshoot scenes later, or try to fix things in editing.  It doesn’t say anything in the article, but this is precisely what the script supervisor should be trying to avoid from happening.  I have no evidence of this, but it seems like decisions were made on location that should have gone through “channels” as they say, to avoid these complications.

[pahonu]

2 minutes ago, Tom said:

The scripts in season 2 were very simple compared to season 1 and 3 and had less substance than style and I don´t see how anyone could have ruined a good script base from L.A. by some changes in Miami as insinuated here by Tartikoff. Also there is no way to make changes unnoticed by LA personnel like the script supervisor or the supervising producer even with MM away.

I would just clarify this by saying there is no way the changes would go unnoticed by LA staff, BUT there would very likely be a lag time before the changes were seen.  
 

Typically the “dailies” are processed and viewed very shortly after the day’s filming.  In these circumstances, however, they have to be transported back to LA.  This is all in the era of physical film stock and it had to be transported across the country then developed and copied before viewing.  The original film stock isn’t viewed.  It’s kept until final editing decisions are made to keep it from being damaged.
 

There was no such thing as digital dailies sent electronically so there was a significant delay involved.  The production crew would almost certainly have moved on to new locations for that script, or might even be working on an entirely different script when word got back about the need for reshoots.

[Kalci]

36 minutes ago, pahonu said:

I would just clarify this by saying there is no way the changes would go unnoticed by LA staff, BUT there would very likely be a lag time before the changes were seen.  
 

Typically the “dailies” are processed and viewed very shortly after the day’s filming.  In these circumstances, however, they have to be transported back to LA.  This is all in the era of physical film stock and it had to be transported across the country then developed and copied before viewing.  The original film stock isn’t viewed.  It’s kept until final editing decisions are made to keep it from being damaged.
 

There was no such thing as digital dailies sent electronically so there was a significant delay involved.  The production crew would almost certainly have moved on to new locations for that script, or might even be working on an entirely different script when word got back about the need for reshoots.

Absolutely on point !

[Matt5]

28-1-86 that article is dated which is right in the middle of Season 2 around the time of the airing of “One Way Ticket” and “Little Miss Dangerous” when I  thought the show was riding very high . A year later in 1987 it was out of the top ten and #24 in Nielsen ratings.

[Tom]

vor 52 Minuten schrieb Matt5:

28-1-86 that article is dated which is right in the middle of Season 2 around the time of the airing of “One Way Ticket” and “Little Miss Dangerous” when I  thought the show was riding very high . A year later in 1987 it was out of the top ten and #24 in Nielsen ratings.

That´s exactly the irony of this article and the Nielsen ratings.

When the stories were super flat, but the visuals and guest stars impressive to most (most of season 2) ratings were top ten, when the stories got much better on substance (season 3), but the visuals went from pink all over to strong contracts the ratings dropped. For me the argument in that article that the stories leaving LA in season 2 were good anyway, but somehow magically got spoiled on location in Miami is a nice fairytale to shift responsibility. Mann was still involved in lots of these decisions at that time (e.g. he declined to use a script around Crockett´s son in mid-season 2) and there lots of other managers including the script supervisor to influence that. There were some strong stories in season 2, but exactly the stretch starting with Junk Love until (including) Free Verse had some thin stories that were just working somehow by being overcompensated by impressive visuals.