For the past three years, The Writer’s Room at the University of Michigan has undertaken the impressive task of writing seasons of television series. The U-M student group expands a showrunner’s pilot episode they’ve written the summer prior into screenplays for a first season of the series over the following two semesters. The group was initially composed of students involved in theater, but over time has attracted more students in the Department of Film, Television, and Media and students of other majors who are interested in screenwriting. This year’s series, “Hexed,” is a fantasy following the story of a teenage witch who accidentally kills her best friend when a summoning spell goes wrong, and must use the help of humans, witches and an evil deity to resurrect her. The group will be holding a live staged reading of the show’s pilot and show bible on April 19 at 8:30 p.m. in Kuenzel Hall at the Michigan Union, which will be free to attend. I delved into the facets of the series and how the Writer’s Room works with Hexed’s showrunner — Marissa Dutton, a senior FTVM student.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The Michigan Daily: What influenced the story for this year? Did any other TV or media have an influence?
Marissa Dutton: I always think witchy stuff is fun. I don’t practice witchcraft but it’s just a fun thing that’s always interested me. Before I came to school here, I made a witchy-type short film. It had nothing to do with what this came out to be but I just really liked it. This initially came out as the short film script that I used for my intro screenwriting class, FTVM 210. It started off as a comedy where she accidentally botches this spell and summons this goofy guy named Greg, and the prophet she wanted to summon is his brother. It basically started off really lighthearted and that’s how I tried to translate it in the pilot. It just turned into something more serious and darker, and has grown a lot in the past year.
In terms of influence, “Stranger Things” is actually a big influence because I was kind of going for the ensemble-type show with people from different groups where you pull them together and have that fun banter that still is grounded in a very serious and dark show. Another thing, which isn’t an influence, it’s kind of the opposite, is “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.” I hate that show. The writing is so bad; when I was watching it I was disappointed because I realized it was so rare that we have a good, fun witchy show. That one was extremely popular but I thought it was super terrible. So when I was thinking about a show to develop, I was like, one, it would be fun to develop something that I’ve already started to write. Also, I like witchy stuff, so I wanted to lean into that. Stuff that’s a little bit out of our reach.
TMD: What steps have been taken to write the show so far, and what steps still need to be taken?
MD: In the fall semester, we start with just basic development, and go into creating character bios and beat boards (visual boards and notes that outline what is happening in a script). We put everything we talk about into this big Google Drive. We break off the development semester into specific points we have to hit and focus on. There’s story, character, tone and theme. The other people in the group created our show bible to put those things in, they worked on that while I developed the pilot. We also did mood board-type stuff to try to develop tone and theme. We did a Pinterest board and I started a Spotify playlist. That’s what I do when I’m writing: make a playlist for the show or movie I’m working on because it helps me get into the mindset a lot better. We created PowerPoints devoted specifically to location, so slideshows with only pictures of places or characters. We really just tried to know the characters really, really well so that when we ran into story problems we could know what the character would do.
The second semester you get into writing, and you just run out of time so fast. We’ve barely had time to do two rewrites. I’ve had the chance to do three for the pilot, and I think that’s what really helped get the pilot to where it needs to be, even then I’m still going to do a fourth rewrite, because that’s just the way it goes. The nature of the workshop is it’s just really fast, and it’s always going to need more time. You can spend as much time on rewriting as you want and you’ll still feel like you need more anyway, that’s just the way it goes.
TMD: How does the collaborative process work when you’re producing something like this with several people?
MD: I think what helps is that everyone has their own episode to write, so it’s not just a group of ten people working on one singular episode at a time. It gets to be impossible at that point. I think what’s helpful about being in a room of writers is that I’ve found that people aren’t afraid to push back on your ideas. We get into arguments, in a way that’s constructive. People get so excited and into the show that their idea is very important to them, and it’s really important that they have other people in the group see their side. I think that’s super helpful to me because it means I’m making a good show, if the writers really care about it.
You have so many people with so many different ideas, that’s why it helps having people from different majors bringing in their different perspectives and wholly different skill sets. We all get along really well, too. Overall it’s just really nice to have people to rely on. Writing is such an isolating experience, and having a writers’ room makes it so much easier. If you get stuck on something you have nine other people who can read it and help you out and fix it.
TMD: What’s your end goal for the project, and what do you hope to get out of it?
MD: The goal is basically practice. Right now it’s hard to come out with something you can actually produce, because this is like a crash course in a way. The Writer’s Room has helped me learn. Last year I had to write a 50-page episode, and it just seemed like so much, but now, I can write so much more, much faster. It’s a learning experience and good for writing samples of course. For me, I think my dream would be to develop the pilot enough to where I could pitch it because I’m graduating this semester and I want to work in screenwriting. I would love to work on the show and get to know it enough to answer questions like, “What does your character eat for breakfast?” and small stuff like that. I want to be able to get to that point and pitch it to people because I really believe in the show. I mean, if I didn’t, what would I be doing? I’m really proud of how far it’s come. I would love to develop it more and get to that point — like that’s the dream. I don’t know if it could get there, but that’s the dream. Even if it didn’t, it’s a great experience to be a showrunner and have that leadership position for a while.
With the winter semester almost over, Writer’s Room is nearly finished with developing “Hexed.” Their upcoming showcase is an exciting opportunity to be introduced to the world of “Hexed” and support the culmination of their year-long project.
Daily Arts Writer Cecilia Dore can be reached at cecedore@umich.edu.