Quantum Con 1992:
"Creating an Episode"
Discussion Panel
From: sallylb@netcom.com (Sally Smith)
Message-Id: 9204300424.AA13571@netcom.netcom.com
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Subject: Updated transcript
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 92 21:24:35 PDT
X-Original-Date: 13 Mar 92 21:41:18 GMT
Here's the corrected version, please update your files!
Subject: QUANTUM LEAP -- "Creating an Episode" panel transcript
At great personal sacrifice (staying up till 3 AM), here's the
transcript from the "Creating an Episode" Panel at the QL convention.
All "um"'s and "y'know"'s and wrong episode titles are word for word
as they said them, no corrections or editing.
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"CREATING AN EPISODE" PANEL 3/1/92
"QUANTUM LEAP" CONVENTION, UNIVERSAL HILTON
This transcript is copyright 1992 by Sally Smith. Any unauthorized
reprinting or retransmission of this _will_ result in you hearing from
my lawyer -- but if you *ask* nicely, I'll probably let you, as long as
it's not for commmercial use.
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CHRIS RUPPENTHAL: (making introductions)... the lovely and talented Deborah
Pratt. Coming from our wing over here, Tommy Thompson, producer, writer
-- stand-up comedian par excellence, too. Also with us is Beverly Bridges,
another one of our writers. Hopefully, Paul Brown will be showing up
any second now, he's supposed to be here. He's making his directorial
debut right now, hopefully he's planning shots for Monday, also.
Speaking of directors, Mr. Joe Napolitano, who's directed quite a few
episodes of "Quantum Leap". And also an actor and technical advisor,
and a former Navy SEAL, Mr. Rich Whiteside. And -- I don't know if we
can put him on the spot or not, or if he's even in the audience,
willing to come up, but Cameron Birnie, the man responsible for this
beautiful set and design, should at _least_ stand up if not come on
stage. Wanna come up, Cam? C'mon! (he does). And also, from post-
production here, the genius -- it's easy to write this stuff, not so
easy to put it together -- I wanna give a hand to Jimmy Giritlian, one
of our unsung associate producers here, in post-production. Jimmy,
you're welcome to come on stage, too, we've got an extra chair (he
declines). We'll field things and throw them to Jimmy, too. Why don't
we all sit down and get this thing going here. I think we have 2
microphones...
I think one of the first things we'll do is -- I'll let Deborah, put
her on the spot -- explain just sort of how we start the genesis of
ideas...
DEBORAH PRATT: The genesis of ideas? Um.
CR: ...And just how the whole process gets rolling.
DP: It's true. Everything starts from the idea. We have -- we're very
lucky on our staff as writers to have very very creative people. As a
staff writer, you pretty much come up with an idea in what's called an
"arena". Sam leaps in to an exciting situation, and then the story
begins. The hard part is, then the story begins. If you came in kind
of out of the blue and pitched to us as what's called a free-lance
writer, we would find an arena that we like, and a leap-in that we
like, and you would sit down with our writing staff and we would begin
to talk about the story, and how it works, and who the characters are,
the most important being the "heart story" and the relationship with
Sam and Al and how Sam drives the story. We have a book, called the
bible, of about -- it's about that thick (indicates)...?
CR: Yeah. It's really thick. _Too_ thick. About 50 pages of stuff on
"Quantum Leap".
DP: And there are rules you have to adhere to, which makes the show
very -- it's what's called a layered show. Because Sam and Al
leap into this entire new situation every week, and we introduce all
new characters every week, we have to have guidelines to how much of
Sam comes through the character, how it evolves in the course of the
show, in what's called the arc, and because it's historical...
Remember those wonderful kisses with history we used to try to do?
They're _very_ hard to do. 'Cause there's a big rule. Kisses with
history have to be immediately recognizable, they have to be funny,
they have to come out of left field and kiss the story, and then you
move on. They're very tough to do.
CR: And not only that, but if that person is still living, you
oftentimes have to get their permission to do this. We tried to do one
with Madonna, we had to, y'know, approach her agent; it was a great
kiss with history, but she turned us down. On the other hand, Stephen
King said yes, that's fine. So you never know.
TOMMY THOMPSON: Some people we never even ask, though. In the
wrestling show we did -- was it the wrestling, yeah? No, it was the
priest show, we did Sylvester Stallone. (shrug) We figured if he was
bothered by that... He must have bigger things to worry about.
DP: You want to just talk about a couple of the other rules?
CR: Yeah.
TT: _Chris_ knows the rules.
CR: Tommy doesn't know the rules, that's why his scripts are much
better than mine. One thing you should know is that it's never easy
for us to come up with an idea, even within our own arenas, sitting
around pitching. We sit around for hours banging our heads against the
walls, pitching ideas for stories. And there are no automatic
approvals. The best thing also that happens is, you get an idea. And
you say, "Sam leaps in as a midget race car driver." And you go,
"That's a _great_ idea! Like, 'Oh, boy!' and he goes out of control."
And we do the whole story, you work it out, and we write outlines and
treatments. And then somewhere down the line, you can almost count on
this, which makes it a much better script, someone goes, "Well, what
if he was a _woman_ driver?" and it changes. That's the golden monkey
wrench. That's a phrase we use around the office.
TT: It's usually _you_.
CR: Yeah. (laughs)
TT: You've got this thing all worked out, you're ready to go write it,
and Chris'll walk in and go, "What if he's _this_?" and it's _gone_.
The whole thing is gone.
CR: But we try to get _past_ that moment anyway. And it makes it
better. Like in the way, when we did the Halloween episode -- (knowing
grin) Should I say the name or not?
AUDIENCE: NO!!! DON'T SAY IT!!!
CR: We were all sitting around and Tommy was one of the people who
said, "Well -- what if _Al's_ the devil?" And he totally causes me to
rewrite this entire outline. (Tommy smiles) One of the things you have
to remember, and that we always beat on people from the outside
writers to ourselves, and we always hear constantly, is that Sam has
to drive the story. That's an internal rule that we always go through,
whether we think he is pushing the action and advancing plots and
overcoming things. It's way too easy -- it's a mistake we make
ourselves, often -- is he just reacts and for three acts stands around
and goes, "Oh, cool, oh, wow, why am I here?" And so the toughest
thing to do is to have him come in and to advance each act, advance
each plot beat per se, occasionally with the help of others. And then,
once you write this fabulous script, we have to pass it...
DP: Go back, one more step. And that is, because we are a time-travel
show, there's a great deal of research that goes into the period, the
look of what we want to set up as writers. You have to set -- we write
little movies each week, and we really look at it that way and we have
to set the scene and the characters so that people don't use credit
cards in 1953, or they don't do things in 1953 that would be something
that you would have in 1985, like a car phone.
TT: It varies, though, from writer to writer, how much research gets
done. (other writers nod and laugh ). I do _very_ little research.
Paul Brown -- Paul isn't here, but Paul flies to other _countries_
to research things. He literally flew to Washington, at his own
expense, for the chimp show and the show about the deaf girl. I wrote
one about a wrestler and all I did was put a picture of a wrestler on
my wall. I was writing it and I would look at it occasionally and
Paul would come in and go, "THIS is your research?!" And I go,
"Yeah!" It just reminds me what I'm writing, it's a wrestler. So, and
Chris does a lot of research, everybody does a lot of research. Except me.
DP: One of the people we call, which is why Rich Whiteside is here,
is, Rich, because when Don was writing "MIA" and Sam leaped into a
Navy SEAL, he wanted some authentic stuff, the real stuff. So, why
don't you talk a little bit about what you do?
RICH WHITESIDE: What I do. Well, I had the luxury of time. When Don
was preparing to do the Vietnam episode, the two-parter, "The Leap
Back", he had about four months before they were actually going in to
shoot that, which is probably unusual (writers nod). He had contacted
me, given me the thumbnail sketch of what the show was going to be
about and asked me to provide him background information.
Unfortunately, he didn't know what he was asking for, 'cause I flooded
him with stuff for about four months. I gave him pictures from guys on
the teams in Vietnam. I didn't serve in Vietnam, so I traveled, like,
down to Virginia and interviewed guys that were commanders in Vietnam,
that did POW repatriation missions and brought that information back
to him. At that time there was a SEAL Team Two twenty year picture
album that came out, so I sent that back to him. I got hold of books
that were written by members who served there that detailed missions,
highlighted what it was like to be in a firefight on the recipients'
standpoint. What was it like to be on a POW repatriation mission. What
were the different basic character types that exist in the teams. And
coming from an acting standpoint, I kinda knew what he was looking
for, and I tried to feed him things he could digest and put into the
story. Which also included locations, such as -- in SEAL teams in
Vietnam, their activities centered around the bar in camp, their
missions, and the bar in town, and you saw where the story kind of
evolved out of. And so he took, on top of that, he layered the story.
And I have to give Don and everybody on the staff a lot of credit,
because they took the time under an incredibly busy schedule to sit
back and listen to what I had to say, and then they incorporated it.
And that was from costumes, to props, to makeup, all the way down the
line. And when we were shooting it, Michael Zinberg, who was directing
it, before each scene, would call me up and he would say, "This is the
way I see the scene developing." I would tell him where there were
inconsistencies, just from a military standpoint. If he could make a
correction and use it, then he did. If we could come to a compromise,
he did. When it came down to artistic license, he made the decision.
So that's what it was from my technical standpoint on that one episode.
DP: OK, now Chris is gonna talk a little bit about after the script is done...
CR: Yeah. After the script is done, and we turn it in to everyone
else, we all get notes. In television, it's a lot more than just
writing the first draft. It's the rewriting of it. And rewriting and
rewriting and rewriting, all the way through production, quite often.
And unfortunately, that will have the impact on two people here also
that -- Cameron Birnie will tell you, who's our art director, set
designer par excellence, and Joe Napolitano, our director is -- they
tear their hairs out as at the last second you suddenly say, "Well,
this scene no longer takes place in an alley, it's in a ballroom for
1200 people." And it sort of changes your life.
TT: It's usually the other way, though.
CR: Right. As Tommy said, it usually goes the other way. Usually, we
start very big and go small, which is the role of actual money in the
production here. It costs a lot of money to do these shows. I think
that our post-production and our production staff do an _incredible_
job of putting every cent on the stage and screen. Because it's very
cheap to write and sit in an office, but what they do every week I
think you'll admit is fantastic. So I'm going to turn it over to
Cameron and Joe a little bit to describe what they get when they get
the script in their hands. Cameron probably should go first, but then
he and Joe work along with other people very closely to try and bring
a vision to life here.
CAMERON BIRNIE: I was hoping _Joe_ would go first, but... Joe and I
read the script. I guess the first thing that we do is make a set
list. And when we start to plan the show, we'll start to discuss what
locations we're gonna look for that are gonna be practical, and which
locations that we wanna make. I remember on one show that we did for
Joe, we did "Pool Hall Blues", and that took place almost entirely
inside that one set. And because we didn't want the company to move
off the stages, there were alley scenes that we did. The most logical
time to do an alley is to go out to the back lot out there and shoot
New York Street. But sometimes the company is so expensive to move,
that in that particular case, we built the alley right on the stage.
We have problems like that all the time, where sometimes you have to
build things you don't expect to build. This show that Joe and I are
prepping right now takes place in an Egyptian tomb. There's only two
major sets on that show. We're gonna build the tomb, both tombs, on
stage, because there's a lot of effects that take place in 'em,
mummies and things like that. And for Egypt, that's another one of our
problems. Just like in the Vietnam show, sometimes we have to find
locations that are almost impossible to find. We have something in the
studio called the "30-mile zone". That means that we're allowed to
find any location we can shoot within 30 miles, 'cause that's as far
as we can ship the company. And within 30 miles of Los Angeles, we
couldn't find Vietnam. We thought about _making_ Vietnam; we think
of all kinds of crazy ideas. We think we could plant a jungle and make
a jungle in a couple days. We finally ended up going outside of the
zone to the only place at _all_ that looked like Vietnam, and it did
look quite authentically like Vietnam, which was out in the town of
Norco, and we were lucky about that. This time we're looking for
_Egypt_. I don't know where you go to find Egypt in the middle of a
drought in Southern California. And then it goes and rains, so every
time we had a dry spot, now there's green weeds growing up everywhere.
We're lucky enough to find a quarry this time. We found a quarry and
we're gonna shoot in this quarry. Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly
level. We had about (looks at Joe) what would you say, about six
bulldozers moving a room this size full of dirt out of the way over
the weekend. It actually happened yesterday.
JOE NAPOLITANO: Just part of the fun. Sort of like when you're a
child and you play in the sandbox. Except this is a _very_ large
sandbox.
CB: You notice that, though, the _directors_ say "that's part of the
fun. I like that part." That's part of the fun for the _writers_, too.
JN: I think on this one, we moved 18 feet high, if you can imagine
this, and probably about a quarter of the size of this room in _dirt_.
CB: Yeah, I was amazed, we're standing on the location up there, and
Joe says, "This place is _perfect_, but I want to be standing where
they are down there, 18 feet below us." And everyone in our group just
said, like we usually say, "...OK."
JN: (hangs his head, laughing) But, y'know, it's all part of telling
the story. It's whatever is gonna make it work, that's what's
important. And that's why the wonderful production staff and the
people that support everything that _we_ do...we just sit there and we
get our ideas and we have our whims about ideas and stuff... But
there's a myriad of people that support us to help make this. Yeah, I
think we perform magic. We have seven days of preparation and then we
shoot the show in eight days. That's basically the way it goes each
episode. Sometimes, like, uh, "B**g**m*n" was done in seven (audience
GASPS, Joe grins). We shot it in seven days.
TT: Except at the end of the year, when we're out of money.
CR: Right.
JN: Yeah.
TT: Then you do it in seven days.
JN: I also wanna go public here with one thing. Chris Ruppenthal, who wrote
"B**g**m*n", as you all know (audience gasps again and applauds, Joe grins
again), you should all know this, OK, his nickname since then has been
"Ruppenboogie". . (smiling) We needed to go public with that. (Chris
laughs, pleased)
DP: In that prep time, some of the things that happen are the casting,
set design, and any type of props that are needed. We had to look at
camels and scorpions, y'know, because we're in the desert and that's
what we're dealing with. Jean-Pierre Dorleac, who will be out in a
little bit, designs all the wardrobes We have to decide on lighting,
any kind of special effects that we need, any type of cars that we
need. It's a _lot_ of people doing a _lot_ of things to make this show
work. And then we start shooting. And we have to deal with, for
example (Chris and Tommy fight over a microphone, Chris wins and Tommy
frowns), we're supposed to be in the desert and it's hot and we've got
rain coming. Which means cover sets.
CR: Yeah. It's amazing. Because they will... (Tommy tries to take back
the mike) as Tommy disconnects this... at the last second, you will
say, "Y'know, I need a 1957 gas lantern for this episode," and, like,
George Tuers goes, "OK, I'll run out and get one." There are about a
hundred people involved in the crew who make this happen. They are
around. It is a miracle every week that it gets done, the episode gets
done in eight days.
TT: The scariest thing is when you say to George, "We need a leather
bra with big studs on it," and he gets it, like, right there in his
car. He gets it out of the back seat of his car.
CR: He's always terrifying.
TT: I don't know what he's got in his trunk, but whatever you need,
he's got it in his trunk.
CR: And we shouldn't forget Beverly up here (she makes a face).
Beverly has a unique path to "Quantum Leap", because she came in
originally as a free-lancer to us, and then, because of the excellence
of her scripts, was brought on staff.
BEVERLY BRIDGES: Ladies, I'm the woman you thank for taking Sam's
clothes off. ( *, as Deborah says, "Me too!" and Beverly smiles and
waves at the audience) Is that right?
DP: Yeah, y'know, it was really funny, 'cause she wrote the script...
BB: Oh, "The Play's the Thing". Sam does a nude Hamlet. *
DP: Before that...
TT: You take 'em off in _every_ episode!
BB: Oh, the bounty hunter...
DP: The first time we did it actually goes back to "Her Charm". I said
to him, "Women out there love you with your -- chest exposed." * He
said, "No, no, no, no way." I said, "Do me a favor..." "Her Charm",
that's right, that's what it was (to Beverly) and then you proved it
again in...
CR: "A Hunting We Will Go."
DP: That's the other one. I said, "If the ratings go up because you're
out without a shirt, never ever hassle me about it again." And sure
enough, we came up three share points.
CR: So, thank Beverly for that.
BB: It's funny, because originally when I wrote "A Hunting We Will
Go", where Sam's a bounty hunter, in the third act, he has a bedroom
scene where his shirt is off. And, as a writer...I just didn't put it
back on (grins). The whole fourth act. Deborah and I were sitting in
a production meeting. In the production meeting, the costume people
were there, everybody who has anything to do with production were
there. We're the only two women in the room. All the guys said, "Wait.
Wait a moment. He doesn't have his shirt back on in the fourth act."
And Deborah and I go, (nodding eagerly) "Yeah." (Deborah laughs)
"Y'know, it's really cold up there in the Sierra highlands..." So we
were overruled by a group full of very modest men, who put the shirt
back on (Chris laughs, audience says "Awww..." and boos, Tommy
attempts to look disgusted). I tried! I tried!
DP: But we had the opportunity in the deaf show for him to take _all_
of his clothes off, so it really makes up for it. When he was the
Chippendale dancer.
CR: Right. And then we did "Hamlet" naked.
DP: You've done it a couple of times, that's right.
CR: There's _no_ stopping this woman.
BB: It's funny, I met a fan this week. And my very first script that I
wrote was "The Great Spontini" and handcuffs played a big part in "The
Great Spontini". My second script was "A Hunting We Will Go" and in
most of it, he's handcuffed. And somebody wrote me asking if I was
really into _bondage_. (rolls her eyes)
TT: Is there a script that you've written that you haven't mentioned
by name yet?
BB: Um... "Raped" (smiles).
TT: She's got 'em all in _twice_, I think (pats Beverly on the back,
smiling).
BB: Jealousy. Professional jealousy (pats Tommy on the back).
DP: Let's take some questions. Editing happens after that, and then
post-production, where we put in sound effects and visual effects,
like you saw. It's a lot of work, and there's a whole post-production
team that works _very_ very very hard...Julie and David Bellisario...
CR: Jimmy Giritlian, Jeff Gourson, and two of our editors I want to
mention right now who have been lurking out there, Jon Koslowsky,
Michael Stern, who've been doing a great job. (indistinct) And all
their assistants.
DP: They do what's called the music and effects, where we talk about
where we want special effects, lightning and thunder, and where we
want music cues to come in, and Ray Bunch comes in and scores for us.
And then Julie and the troops put it together and that's how we get it
to you.
CR: I'd also like to...Ernesto, over there our sound man, for
looping, who makes sure you can understand all the dialogue. If we can
bring up the house lights now, why don't we spend a few minutes doing
(surprised at the number of people wanting to ask questions) -- wow! --
questions and answers.
Q: Has Dean or Scott ever said they won't do anything that you've ever
written?
CR: Has Dean or Scott ever said they won't _do_ anything?
JN: _Yes._
DP: They are the darlings of television. They are the best people to
work with and for. They each give 200 percent every time. But there
are things that even _they_...
TT: They've gotten angry about things before. Not angry, but, um...I
remember in the beauty pageant show, I walked down and I saw Scott
in that bathing suit with the high heels. And he just looked at me and
he goes, "I don't know where or when, but I'll get you for this."
He hasn't gotten me yet.
Q: (Sam always been an American, any plans to be a foreign national?)
DP: We're shooting him in Egypt.
JN: Wednesday, we start filming him in Egypt. The question was, does he
go overseas or has he ever gone into other than American situations?
Well, Vietnam was one.
CR: Also, will he be a foreign national? We've talked about it several
times. There's nothing right in the immediate future for him being a
foreign...We've talked about him being like an Arab sheik, like the
wealthiest guy in the known universe , with y'know, a harem of women,
he leaps in, "Oh, boy!" "Master, we're here to serve you!" "Oh,
boy." But nothing right currently.
Q: Are you ever gonna give Sam a vacation and put Al in his place?
(indistinct)
CR: Are we ever gonna give Sam a vacation or put Al in his place, and
will he ever see his wife again? (to Deborah) Should we, uh...? Some
of those are trade secrets right now. Let me just say those areas
are all under consideration right now. And you'll have to stay tuned,
some of that may be answered in the season finale just to whet your
appetite. ( and groans)
TT: Or ask Don when he gets here. Yeah.
DP: (nodding, smiling) Ask Don.
CR: Put _Don_ on the spot when he gets here at 4:00.
Q: Will Sam ever meet himself?
CR: Will Sam ever meet himself? Um...
TT: We tried to do that once. Paul, Paul Brown actually wrote that
into a script, and it got pulled out for some reason. It just seemed
strange. I don't think we wanted to use it unless we had a really big
story to build it around.
CR: Yeah, actually, it was part of the chimp show, where when he was a
chimpanzee, there was a scene written where the young Sam Beckett came
in and met this attractive woman scientist who tried to sort of pick
him up and was sort of unnerved about it and failed. And the chimp
kept trying to coax him along, really. "No, you idiot! She _wants_
to go out with you!" It was like a (chimp noises) "Ooo aah," "Excuse
me, sorry." So that got pulled.
Q: (indistinct)
CR: She'd like each of us to say is there a scene that we've loved
that has been cut. I would assume that either a produced scene or we
could even say a written scene. (looks around) We'll start with Joe,
put him on the spot.
JN: (hangs his head) Not really whole scenes. Sometimes as a director,
you fall in love with certain shots within a scene, a piece of the
scene and (leans his head on Deborah's shoulder) the _producers_ take
it out (she laughs as he pretends to hit her with the mike). But,
y'know, they usually have good reasons and you just go along with
that. It's all for the better, I mean, we're not trying to ruin the
show. But sometimes, y'know, it's hard to let go of something. Writers
have the same problem, I'm sure (Chris nods). They'll write a scene
and in the final edit, maybe only half of that scene will be in there
and you'll lose some stuff--but you've gotta do that, y'know, because
sometimes some things get in the way of telling the story, and what
it's about is telling the story. So we all just kind of live through
it, y'know. But it's OK. I'm not complaining. I'm just saying it has
to go sometimes.
DP: By the time a show gets shot, from a writer's standpoint of view,
it pretty much is what it is. There was a scene in "Shock Theater",
there was a conversation between Verbena Beeks and Sam (Joe nods). And
we ended up losing the audio, because of Ziggy, what Ziggy could and
couldn't do. The original ending of "So Help Me God" was a very
different ending and for a variety of reasons, it was changed. So,
yeah, there are scenes that change. But I think in the long run -- and
you're here in support of the fact -- that it makes the best show. You
just keep growing.
CR: Yeah, I think it's amazing. I can remember one specific time where
-- you get into debates over how Sam's character would behave. In the
motorcycle show, where they run into Jack Kerouac, we had a scene
where he went to confront Kerouac at his cabin. I know Deborah and I
had a, y'know, we sort of got head-to-head on this one for one brief
moment (Deborah smiles), where I had Sam coming in -- 'cause I took a
pass at that one scene -- and being more angry at him, and sort of...I
wrote this scene with Sam coming in with a lot of anger and saying,
y'know, "You're too passive, you've got to get off the sidelines and
get with the program here and try to help these kids out. You talk
about being involved and you're not." And then he left. It was a very
angry moment, and we seldom see Sam be _that_ angry. And we went
around and around about whether he should be or shouldn't be. We
ultimately wound up toning it down, that scene. For me _personally_, I
think that's one of the times where I would have liked to have seen
him gone in that direction. It's a choice. I think the other scene
played very well, also. It's just an interesting debate that goes on,
that sometimes _rages_ on around the office behind where, y'know,
people discuss things, and then you finally have to just make the
decision, you only have one shot to film it, you can't film it both
ways. 99 percent of the time, things come out for the best. But we
have this, definitely, this dialectical system going on, where it's
thesis, antithesis, and then synthesis, and hopefully you're not _too_
bloody to stand up afterwards.
TT: (frowning) _What_ did he just say? (grins, shakes his head) He
went to Harvard, that's why he talks like that (Chris smiles). I had a
scene changed in a script that we just finished shooting that Joe
directed. (Joe reacts) No, it wasn't because of Joe, I don't even
think Joe ever saw that, _Don_ made me change it. It was at the end
and it was very disturbing and very sort of violent and Don said he'd
promised NBC a comedy, and so we changed it to something that was even
_more_ bizarre in my mind, so you'll have to see it. It's called
"Moments To Live", but _that_ one I would like to have had back the
way it was.
BB: Well, usually, my scenes that are cut have to do with undressing
him. * (she shrugs, rest of panel laughs) I had... Where Sam's the
bounty hunter, I had in one of the drafts, I had Sam asking Diane as
she was about to go off to jail, "Was this for real?" And she goes,
"Yeah, this is for real," back and forth, back and forth, and had a --
great big kiss, and then they leapt out on the kiss. And we decided,
"Wait, wait, wait, she's not in love with Sam, she's left with this
bad-breath bounty hunter," and so we had to say, "Well, I'm going off
to be a bounty hunter." So that was the one that I thought, hmmm...
(to Rich, handing him the microphone) Yes?
TT: They always change...in the original draft of "Future Boy", I, uh,
I _killed_ Captain Galaxy at the end. (he laughs, audience boos, he
gives audience a disgusted look)
DP: (smug smile) Guess Don was right... (panel laughs)
TT: And uh, _no_, I mean, I thought it was a good death! (smiling) He
died of a heart attack, but right before he died, he saw Sam as who he
really was, and he knew that time travel was possible (audience says
"Awww"). So he went out on kind of an up note, y'know -- but he still
went out, y'know. I'm sure Richard Herd is very happy that I didn't
do that.
RW: In the Vietnam episode, there was one scene that wasn't able to
make it time-wise that I really personally liked. When we shot it,
those who had served in Vietnam were very affected by it. It was a
scene after Maggie was killed and Sam had scooped her up and was
running back with the rest of the platoon, which had now linked
together. And the camera's shooting down this path, with the platoon
fighting off the bad guys, and the helicopter lands right in front of
the camera, and you're now looking through the cockpit and they piled
in carrying her, and the whole platoon, and the helicopter lifted off.
For me, personally, it was just a scene that looked authentic. That
was one that I _hated_ to see go, but there just wasn't enough time to
put it in.
CB: Me? I've had _many_ sets kicked... (indistinct) ... many, many sets
messed up. My biggest disappointment, I guess, is some sets that I've
done have been very big, _beautiful_ sets that the only thing that's
ended up on TV is just this little square around a head. Which I
_guess_ is why actors get their credits up front...
CR: I want to make one last thank you to Universal City Tours, who has
contributed a lot here, so before we forget, big hand to the tours.
Q: (write story lines or get really intricate?)
CR: First you come up with the arena, whatever it may be. In my case,
in the upcoming episode that Joe's directing, it's an archaeologist in
Egypt, discovering a tomb. Then, I wrote an outline that was about
eight pages long, single-spaced, broken down into four acts, two pages
per act, roughly. And going through the major action of all the events
there, and the character development. The biggest thing that they
really look for is, what is the heart story? They figure out, and
we'll get the plot down, it's a murder mystery or whatever else.
And then, when you write the script, _boy_, you'd better put it in the
script. And if you put it in by accident and you think it's just a
joke (Tommy nods), you'll be sitting there in a production meeting
with fifty people around you going, (seriously) "Where do you want
this dwarf llama?" And they did that in one case, where we had the
goat in the Halloween episode (Joe laughs), we had a big goat that was
black, or we could get a pygmy goat that we could paint white that
looked good. (to Joe) So you said, "I want a white goat," (Joe nods),
and so they paint the goat white, y'know? You have to be very
specific or it's just not gonna show up. You can't assume that even,
as well and as good as these professionals are, that they will,
y'know, read your mind.
TT: It's also -- sometimes you don't know _what_ you want. You know
you want something there. Like, in "Future Boy", again, when I wrote
the time machine, I had a _vague_ idea what I wanted it to look like,
but _Cameron_ really built it. I mean, Cam came to me and gave it to
me. Y'know, I walked down and I saw it and it was just like, "_Hey_,
that's it. That's the thing I wanted." So it's give and take.
Q: (way in the back and very indistinct)
CR: Could we see Sam as a surfer in the early 80's? That was the
question?
JN: Deborah just whispered in my ear, "So would Paul."
CR: We've actually talked about doing that. Sometimes, it's just a
matter of production. Is it too cold to put them in the water, during
this time of year, filming? We'll make that decision. The other thing
really is, we've come up with a lot of interesting arenas, like
surfing, is can we film it for the budget, and what is the story going
on in there? We have a lot -- he's a bullfighter. Great. But what is
the heart story going on? That's the big thing.
Way, way, way in the back. Can you come forward and say this?
TT: (smiling) Come forward.
CR: Come forward. The Great and Powerful Oz.
Q: When the people are waiting in the Waiting Room (indistinct, but
what do they remember?)
DP: We have a standing joke around the office that that's where all
the UFO experience stories come from. And what we say is that they
are as Swiss-cheesed as Sam. So, as they pass through Sam in the
quantum leap, they pick up pieces of his experience, and take with
them whole sections that they forgot. So, as that stands --I mean,
most of them come back and they're in a white room with people in
white clothes and they think they've been picked up by aliens -- so
they don't talk about it a lot. If you notice, most of the alien
sighting stories came about 1953. Last question.
Q: I have a three-part question. In the episode where Sam leapt
into a gay college cadet, the first part of the question is, can I get
a copy of the original script, the second part of the question is,
what was altered in the original script, and the final part is, what
made the advertisers pull out, and I know you can't really say this,
but I'd like to know who the advertisers were so I don't buy their
products.
TT: Yeah. I did one of the rewrites on that script. It was written by
Bobby Duncan, who is a free-lance writer. I'm trying to remember what
the arguments were about the first draft of it... (comments to him
from others) that's right. The problem NBC had with it, the big
problem, was it was a teenage suicide story. It was set in a prep
school, it was a much younger kid, and he was going to kill himself.
_That_ was their biggest problem with it. I did a rewrite on it. I
sort of did more of the attitude of Sam defending him and Al having a
problem with it, being from an old school. We aged 'em a little bit,
we made the kids older, and it seemed to calm them down a lot. It was
funny, I couldn't understand the controversy on the script. I just
kept reading and hearing things about it, and these people I don't
think had ever _seen_ the script or heard about it. It offended _me_.
I, uh -- I've been disabled since I was 15, and I _don't_ lump myself
in with _every_ disabled -- y'know what I mean? I mean, _every_ story
about a disabled person is _not_ about me. And I didn't see how that
story was so universal, and indicted everybody on the planet with this
one story line. So it really _bothered_ me, a lot. I don't know what
the products were, to tell you the truth.
CR: Yeah, two of the main concerns that NBC had, when you deal with a
division of standards and practices, which is basically sort of a
censorship-type deal. But one was that they have done studies, the
networks, that whenever teenage suicide is portrayed, even if you go
through the entire episode saying. "it's bad, don't do it, kids,
there's another way out," there is a rise in attempted and successful
teenage suicides. So we were only too happy to not contribute to that
by making it a college-age situation, where we made a specific point
of saying, "I'm 21, I'm old enough to make up my own mind," to make
them older. The other point they wanted to do was not to have the gay
character seem flagrantly, stereotypically, caricatured as a gay
person.
DP: (shaking head) It _never_ was.
CR: It _never_ was. We went through and our whole point was, the whole
point of the episode was, "What's the difference? What's the point?"
TT: The last line in the script, the last scene that I wrote was, Al
saying, "I still can't remember, I can't figure it out, was he gay?"
and Sam says, "Does it matter?" And that was the point of the whole
script. And I don't think that the people that were arguing about it
got to that point in the script before they went _nuts_, y'know what I
mean? So, hey (shrugs), y'know, people have problems with things like
that, so you have to deal with them. (grins) So that's why you write
wrestling shows, where nobody cares...
CR: Another question. The woman waving her arms frantically! A
microphone is hurrying its way back to you. A big hand for the
microphone lady!
Q: How does one submit a story line to you guys?
CR: As a free-lancer, from the outside?
Q: Yeah. (audience says, "Oooo" ominously, panel shakes their heads)
CR: Hey, that's a good question. That's a terrifying question. Quite
frankly, stories are submitted _only_ through agents accredited with
the Writer's Guild of America, East or West. We cannot -- even if you
call up on the phone, and say, "Hey, I don't want any money for this,"
which a lot of people do, "I just think it would be a cool idea for
Sam to do that," but we can't listen to it. It's unfortunate, but the
way the legal system is today, and what has happened to us in the
past, we have to be very strict and very certain. If you submit a
manuscript, a "Quantum Leap" spec script, it will be returned unread
by our legal department. We just can't -- what we don't want to do to
aspiring writers, or writers who've already done some work, is
consciously or unconsciously co-opt an idea and beat you out of the
money. Because it's only fair that your ideas get the recognition they
deserve, if they're good ideas, and the payment they deserve, and
that's why they _have_ to go through an agent. And _not_ an attorney,
but an agent, a literary agent, who can represent you.
TT: I got a balloon-o-gram one day in my office. And my secretary
brought it in and it was this _beautiful_ thing and it said, "It's a
boy, congratulations." And I said, "My wife isn't pregnant, this
_can't_ be for me." And it was the right address and everything, and
it had this gift attached to it, and I opened it, and it was a script.
About Sam being pregnant. And Deborah had already written the
episode. And I just, it was like that thing was on _fire_ when I
touched it. I just like, I threw it on the floor and I yelled for
somebody to come in and take it away. Because if they found out that
I'd read that script, as a producer -- we're _dead_, y'know. It's a
real touchy situation.
CR: Could you stand up and sort of -- scream?
Q: (indistinct, will the show be renewed?)
CR: Are we gonna be renewed? Well, what do you think? *
Q: It's just that we'd hate to see NBC do another cancellation "Star
Trek" type thing and then find out a few years down the road that,
boy, they blew it again.
CR: Yeah, so would we. Just one note of reality there, the big
change that's sweeping television right now is _money_. And that's
what we're up against, isn't it?
DP: That's what we're up against. As a matter of fact, they're having
meetings now, as we speak. Because "Quantum Leap" is such a unique
show, its uniqueness makes it expensive in today's market. They have
to question and look at their participation in it. And I hope that the
powers that be at Universal and NBC say quality programming is
important.
CR: Thank you everybody, thank you for Joe, Deborah, Tommy, Beverly,
Rich, Cameron, and myself!