Breaking a Season

Sunday, May 1
9:30AM – 11:00AM
John Bassett Theatre

Showrunner Stephen Falk, (YOU’RE THE WORST, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, WEEDS) will discuss television structure and how lessons he’s learned over fifteen years of writing scripts led to the development of his theories of breaking an entire season. Using examples from the first two seasons of his hit FXX show, Falk will talk through the challenging process of coming into a writers room and facing empty white boards on day one, and emerging months later with an entire season of television ready to shoot.

Sponsored By

Stephen Falk

Stephen Falk

Creator/Executive Producer/Showrunner of the FXX series YOU’RE THE WORST

Stephen Falk is the Creator/Executive Producer/Showrunner of the FXX series YOU'RE THE WORST, which appeared on numerous Top 10 lists after each of its first two seasons; both seasons received nominations for Best Comedy at the Critics' Choice Awards. Season 3 will air in 2016. As part of an overall deal with FX, he is currently developing four comedies for the network. He served as Co-Executive Producer of Netflix's ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, and Showtime's WEEDS. In 2012 he served as the Creator/Executive Producer/Showrunner of NEXT CALLER, a half-hour single-cam comedy starring Dane Cook, Jeffrey Tambor, and Collette Wolfe which was picked up for NBC's 2012-2013 midseason schedule... and subsequently cancelled before airing. He is currently adapting the Scott Hutchins novel A WORKING THEORY OF LOVE as a feature film. Stephen graduated from NYU with a BFA in Acting and started out writing plays -- later transitioning to feature films for such studios as Fox, Dimension, Universal, and then writing television pilots for Showtime, ABC, NBC, Fox, USA, and SyFy. Stephen received a 2012 Writers Guild Awards nomination for Episodic Comedy for writing an episode of WEEDS called, "Object Impermanence" and a second in 2014 for his work on ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK. Stephen used to recap reality shows for the formerly-great Television Without Pity, is co-producer and sometimes host of a popular monthly storytelling series at M Bar in Hollywood called Public School, and does a weekly webshow about movies with his group The Film Pigs.

(Twitter: @stephenfalk for dumb jokes.)

Moderator

Kurt Smeaton

Kurt Smeaton

Writer/Producer

Hailing from the suburbs of Ottawa, Kurt writes, produces and sometimes acts. Select writing credits include WHAT WOULD SAL DO? (Super Channel), CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS (Sony/Teletoon), YOUNG DRUNK PUNK (Rogers/CBC),  MR. D (CBC), THIS IS THAT (CBC Radio 1), SATISFACTION (CTV), MEN WITH BROOMS (CBC) and SPACE RIDERS: DIVISION EARTH (Bell). He is a member of the award winning sketch group Falcon Powder who’s web series THE WHOLE TRUTHS (CBC Punchline) will premiere this summer.