CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Creating Saturday Night Live: Control Room

YouTube: Director Don Roy King and crew share how an episode goes from script to stage.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow what they have to do to put on SNL is crazy. They have to be really good at adapting and making changes without practicing them. That is a big difference between theatre and live tv because in theatre you rehearse the same thing over and over until it is right. In live TV like SNL they do not get to rehearse some things at all and the order of the show is changed at the last minute. There is not opportunity to get in a grove because each show is different and it might be a different show than they planned by the time it gets to the end of the show. I think it would be a lot of fun and an adrenaline rush to work on SNL and in that type of situation. I like high-pressure situations and SNL seems like it is an extremely high pressure situation. There also is not a lot of time to ask questions if you do not understand something so you need to be able to figure it out and go with the flow of everyone else.

Rachel Kolb said...

That is the most insane thing I have ever seen. I don’t know what would prepare you for a job like that. It looks so cool I could just gush about how amazing and thrilling that production process is for hours. Making a set, and building props, getting wardrobe, writing material, learning material, and blocking pieces all in 3 days; it’s astounding. The fast pace nature of working on SNL must take a special type of person. You can’t get caught up in the details because they are constantly changing. This constant change and the necessary quick adoption of these changes is astounding. Not only does the production team have to be able to receive a change and act on it quickly, but the actors have to do it as well. Its mind-blowing all of the moving pieces that have to come together is such a short amount of time. Then throw in the fact that it is all performed live. One little change can effect so many departments so the flow of information and the communication that has to be going on must be ridiculous.

Mattox S. Reed said...

This just proves how crazy and unique Saturday Night Live is as a production. There's nothing like it in the world. Live theatre we have weeks and weeks of rehearsal and it seems crazy to even change a line the night before where in this sort of circumstance its regular practice to cut or change entire scenes in the middle of the performance, thats insane. The amount of talent and experience that you want to lean on in this kind of instance can only be found at SNL and there can only be so much that you rely on. Not just when each and every performance is different is different but when each and every run and iteration of a performance is different from that last I don't know how any person is able to prepare. Doing something like SNL would be an absolutely amazing and simultaneously horrifying experience.

Claire Farrokh said...

Ah Saturday Night Live. My absolute dream job. It would be so enormously fun to do this show every single week. The fact that everyone watching this video is thinking "Wow that's so crazy I had no idea!" shows how incredibly skilled this team is. Good management means you don't notice. I truly cannot imagine having to fit an exact running time, especially with comedy when you need to pause for laughs, account for improv, etc. However, I guess that is really the case with any live televised event, though most live things end up running long anyway. I cannot imagine how stressful and exhilarating it must be during that hour and a half, never knowing what will change from minute to minute. I think a lot of managers struggle with the idea of doing the same thing over and over (as it would be working on a long running show for many years), and I think SNL is the perfect balance of the same and entirely different. It's the same basic formula every single week, but you have absolutely no idea what is going to happen, and that is such an amazing idea.

Mary Emily Landers said...

The meticulousness of creating and putting on this show every week and how fast paced the production is is insane. It completely makes sense that the production and design team is so close knit and have all been working on SNL for upwards of 15 seasons. There is definitely a huge need to be flexible and adaptable with how quickly changes are made and how fast paced the entire run is. From a design perspective, I can see how intense the process is in regards to creating designs for numerous pieces in a matter of 3 days. From an actors perspective, I can only imagine how similarly hectic it is to receive a script on Wednesday and have it continually change all the way up to minutes before walking on stage to perform it. This is truly an incredible process that requires so much care while also being able to successfully function in a fast paced, high pressure environment.