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Celia Finkelstein is talking shop. Welcome all creators and connoisseurs of streaming content.
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:30
Writing the Dream : a career in tv is all that IS cracked up! A convo with industry veteran JORDAN ROTER
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I'm going to have her tell a little bit more about where she's done her duties, but just to drop names like it's kind of a fast tracking. So I'll drop names like Paramount and Netflix and CBS and ABC, NBC and CW. She's actively in this world, and it's really cool that we get to talk to her about what she's been doing, and we're just going to get into it because it's so interesting to understand career trajectories in this space
JORDAN ROTER
@JordanRoter · 4:56
And suddenly I had not only two kids home all day who were eight and ten at the time, but they also needed to be home schooled and had lots of questions all the time
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:20
Do you find that the character just takes you in and you just write the character because it's embodying you? Or do you have something a little more top heavy, a little more cerebral? Or do you feel like you're one of those writers that really becomes the characters? And is that safe for you? And what's the process for getting out of that world and going back into the kitchen? And is this something that you developed over time, or does this sort of happen to you?
JORDAN ROTER
@JordanRoter · 4:57
And that was quite hard when I had my son, Kramer from Seinfeld just coming in every second and my daughter wanting to talk about camp clothes and arguments with friends and whatnot and it's very jarring. So I do think there is a kind of method writing. It's definitely an easier transition. When I was writing my Netflix movie, that was like, really fun and silly. It still wasn't easy, but it was definitely easier than writing something darker
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:26
Sort of a way for you to sort of say, how can I not be completely subjugating to archetypal things you don't want to bore us with, like, oh, that's so predictable. But yet you have to use some standards to make that shift happen. So when you're writing this character, how much are you leaning into the differences just to get the character right and dropping her into an American body?
JORDAN ROTER
@JordanRoter · 5:00
And so she really helped me because I've never been in a real kitchen, and all of this has a culinary background, again, a hat on a hat on a hat, but in a fun way. So I learned a lot about not just her experience as a female chef in a kitchen, but also her experience as a Latinx chef in that kitchen
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:14
So that's interesting for me, just as a person to notice that I just love the fusion of all these different parts of this person that you're describing. It's just amazing. I kind of want to shift the conversation a little bit to just this fantastic career that you're in, and the opportunity for you to play psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist and magician. And I still can't get my head around
JORDAN ROTER
@JordanRoter · 5:00
They have a deal on the lot. It's a lot of different ways that happens. But I always try to have multiple things going on. Whether that's feature TV books. I have an idea. I started as a novelist. I had a couple of novels published before I had a TV and feature career. And so this summer I actually have somewhat of a plan to write a Ya novel that I've been wanting to write for a long time
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:41
My big dream is that you take a conversation with Monica on your own, on your swell cast. After you put a picture in the background and you make your swell cast alive is to strike a conversation with Monica and talk about life together as partners in crime in terms of writing, because that is a fascinating thing. You can do it here on the tele, or you can do it in your own Spellcast. Just an invitation putting it out there
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
JORDAN ROTER
@JordanRoter · 4:42
And she pitched a story right before my first novel came out for a night out because I'm from New York, and I moved down to La. Anyway, she wrote that, and in so doing, we just really became dear friends. Our husbands became friends, and for many years we talked about writing something together. We shared an office on Marchmont for a while when she wasn't there
JORDAN ROTER
@JordanRoter · 1:38
And he is my work husband, even though I also have a work husband who is actually my husband. So I just wanted to put that out there about Eric and kind of tag him because he should be involved in this because also and he can speak to this. He has had multiple writing partners, and I am very much his favorite and continue to be. So I just wanted to put that out there into the swell verse and leave it at that
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:14
I guess I want to ask you a question about that because one of the things I've been enjoying about Swell is there are two functions here. One is a group where you can have a bunch of people multiple conversations. It's called a group. And then there's something called a private swell where you have a conversation like you and I are having, but it's in private, and it can last forever
JORDAN ROTER
@JordanRoter · 4:11
So we did it like scene by scene, where we'd give each other a couple scenes and then we'd swap and we'd go through it. Sometimes if there were bigger changes, we would talk before we went through it, and then I would fix all the extra spaces that Monica left. Sorry, Monique, and I think that sometimes it was really helpful with both of them. We would get into when you're talking about leaving messages and that creative process
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:52
I think the theme here is so cool. It's it's it's it's sort of that Infinity loop where you're not playing distinct roles, but you're really catching each other's balls where someone left off. You pick up. When someone, someone sees you're having a gap, they pick up and knowing each other's strengths and weaknesses over time and yet not boxing them in and limiting them because I think different projects bring out different strengths and people
Eric Garcia
@reallytrulyeric · 1:57
And we do work really well together, and I think part of that is because we're good at listening to each other and because I think we have both complimentary and sort of analog skill sets, especially when it comes to comedy. It's a lot easier to write comedy when you're bouncing off of somebody. And while I do have different people, I work with at different times, especially in TV, which is very much a collaborative medium
JORDAN ROTER
@JordanRoter · 3:03
The other thing I was really interested in is getting Eric, as you mentioned, you collaborate with other writers. I don't like to think about that or talk about that, but that maybe we should just talk about why I am your favorite person to collaborate with and what makes me different from all the others. Or you can also talk about how you work with other people and blah, blah, blah. It's not as much fun as just comparing it and orbiting it around me
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:46
Hey, I'm just gonna b*** in here for 2 seconds. Eric, welcome to Swell. Jordan, those are all great questions. Eric, you probably need a crayon to write all those questions down so you can answer them in the order that they were received. Particularly love the idea of utilizing telling us why Jordan is your favorite partner in writing. And if you're going to lie, I want to see how that comes across
Eric Garcia
@reallytrulyeric · 4:33
I don't remember what I was going to say. George had mentioned just how we work together, and how there are things that I had done because I've been writing a little bit longer than she has that she started to pick up on. And some of that's literally just formatting some of it is literally how I lay it out on the page because I very much believe that you write for your audience
JORDAN ROTER
@JordanRoter · 2:31
Now, what's strange is that when Eric and I met Bailey was about five years old. So it's wild that he kind of five years ahead. Eric Garcia sees the future, guys. So that is something else you should know about him, and he knew I would be his favorite writing partner
Eric Garcia
@reallytrulyeric · 4:26
Everybody knew that was what was going to happen. So much of it is about the interrelation between episodes, and there would be no way to do the prep that we needed or to do the narrative and character threads that we needed to be doing at the same time. That said, it's also the only way I've ever done it. I've never done network TV. You mentioned Cassandra French, which was the thing I did for a streamer that was called Full Screen
I feel that way. But writing is really lonely. And having a partner makes it so much more fun. It adds accountability. It motivates you. It adds almost a competitive edge. You really want to please your partner. And in my case, Jordan is such a fantastic partner that I look forward to that call. She talked about where I'll pick up the phone and she'll say, Holy s***, you nailed that. I can't believe you wrote that
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:42
And as you vibe with each other, I hope this conversation continues. Why not? This is the nature of Swell, and this channel is dedicated. The Tale is dedicated to just vibing with this. I've just invited Celia Finkelstein to the Conversation, who's also a seasoned writer and would really bring another flavor to this
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