Eugene Lee: Production Designer for SNL

Posted on January 10, 2017 at 4:01 pm

Eugene Lee has designed sets for “Saturday Night Live’ since the very beginning in 1975. He spoke to the UK’s Creative Review about creating the look of the sketches and how technology and expectations have changed in 41 years.

Lee says the SNL team has just four days to prepare the show and construct sets. Every Wednesday, he takes the train from Rhode Island (where he lives) to New York (where the show is broadcast) and spends the afternoon reading through scripts submitted by writers. Once the producers have decided which scripts they’d like to use, Lee and his team will work with the writers and actors to devise each set.

“We go and talk to the writers and actors and try to work out what they see in the set,” he explains. “If the script says there’s a restaurant, we’ll say, ‘what kind of restaurant? Is it high class? Is it elegant? Does it have red chequered tablecloths?’…. SNL is best when there’s great writing – if a sketch doesn’t have that, then it’s a fail – so we listen to the writers and they tell us what they think.

Norman Lear Reboots One Day at a Time on Netflix

Posted on January 6, 2017 at 10:03 am

Twenty years after his last series premiered on television, 94-year-old Norman Lear is back with a reboot of one of his most popular series, showing that he is, as ever, not just a reflection of contemporary culture but willing to push it. The creator of such iconic television series as “All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son” now brings us a new version of “One Day at at Time,” the then-innovative show about a newly divorced woman raising two daughters. The entire first season is streaming on Netflix, and the story is now about a Latina family, a nurse who is a military veteran (Isabella Gomez), her mother, played by EGOT-winner Rita Moreno, and her daughter and son. And yes, there is a wisecracking handyman named Schneider, which Lear said was the hardest part to cast “and most fun.”

In an interview with Vulture, Lear and co-creator of the series Gloria Calderon Kellett talked about the “creator’s paradise” in working with Netflix, the benefits of not having to write around breaks for commercials, and, a Norman Lear touch, including a middle aged, liberal white male character (the nurse’s doctor boss) to provide an opportunity for a spirited exchange of perspectives.

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HBO: Bright Lights with Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds

Posted on January 5, 2017 at 8:00 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1EnDqhFU6I

In tribute to Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, HBO has moved the premiere date of the documentary about them, a festival favorite, and it premieres on Saturday, January 7, 2016 at 8 pm Eastern.

Be sure to check out “Wishful Drinking,” Fisher’s one-woman show about her life, also on HBO.

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Coming to Netflix: A Series of Unfortunate Events

Posted on December 30, 2016 at 8:00 am

Neil Patrick Harris stars as the evil Count Olaf in the new Netflix series based on the wildly popular books by Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Coming to PBS: The Hollow Crown — War of the Roses

Posted on December 9, 2016 at 8:00 am

In the mid-15th century, the royal House of Plantagenet had two rival groups that fought for control of the throne of England. On one side was the House of Lancaster, associated with a red rose, and on the other was the House of York, whose symbol was a white rose. There were many battles and conflicts, especially between 1455 and 1487. It continued until Henry Tudor of Lancaster became king and married Elizabeth of York, uniting the two factions.

Shakespeare’s plays about this conflict are coming to PBS this weekend as a second “Hollow Crown” series, this one called “War of the Roses.”

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