Ah Tim, ya wanna put
that big blade down now?
|
He is one of the most inspirational writers on Angel, bringing a variety of background experience to the series where a brooding, soul-filled, redemption-seeking vampire could find himself in many a dark and unexplored alley. Whether Angel, confronted with the past relationship of his father or forced to face the one soul he has yet been able to save . . . the words, the pain, the emotion come from the pen and imagination of Tim Minear. "There is much good in it," says Tim of last years season finale, "and it’s very bitchen!" While on his summer hiatus, which pretty much consisted of quality pool time and not much more of anything else, we got a chance to explore a bit about the man, the myth and the mystique that surrounds the writer and now associate producer, as the second season begins.
THE INSPIRATION
As with most young people, imaginations need a spark, an awakening and Tim was no exception as he tells us of one author that inspired him as a teen. "I think, probably, the most influential author for me was Harlan Ellison as I was growing up," he begins, "and actually, his seminal episode of the original Star Trek series, ‘City on the Edge of Forever’. I was one of these kids that grew up here in southern California with a Super-8 movie camera and myself along with a group of friends made films. That’s what we did and we did it all the time and it was mostly science fiction or action. It was silent film back in them days," he admits jokingly. That’s where he learned the language of film and always knew that was what he wanted to do.
"I wanted to go work
with Joss (Whedon),
and boy did I make
the right choice!"
|
"I didn’t know I was going to be a writer per se, at that time. Eventually I graduated to sound films and I started writing in order to have things for the actors to say." Tim went on to study film at California State University in Long Beach and soon found himself in the thick of writing. "I wrote some spec features and I just, sort of happened into writing an episode of television which was Zorro for the Family Channel." That ended up being his first produced episode. That’s when the realization hit him! "Eventually it just became about television because I quickly learned that writers have all the power in television and none of the power in movies," he says as he admit to being a Hitchcock fan. "Oh yeah. I have my giant Vertigo poster here on my wall. Love The Birds, recently released on DVD, wide screen!" (laugh)
Tom Hanks recently made a comment when he appeared on Behind the Actors Studio where he felt that television was the ideal ‘writers medium’, and Tim agrees, "That’s very true. You look at any television show that is at all memorable and anything that’s really good, like the X-Files or Buffy, you’ll see that they are created by writers, Chris Carter or Joss Whedon, David Kelly. These guys have a specific vision and the people that produce television are the writers. Whenever you see ‘executive produce’, it generally means the top writer on a TV show.
David Boreanaz may have a fear
of heights but Tim likes it up there!
|
And we do more than just write the shows, we cast them, we work with the production people, we produce the shows. All the way through the post-production, from editing, to the mix, to the sound effects, to the music, all that stuff. We’re there every step of the way." He finishes off with, "In movies it ain’t like that."
Early on in his career Tim wrote specs of the X-Files television series, as many aspiring writers have done. But with so many shows to choose from it’s really not that difficult to determine what’s the best approach when shopping your wears. Tim explains the basic approach. "The thing about a spec is you want to pick something you know, first off, something that you’re very familiar with. You want to pick something that is good writing and you want to pick a thing that is on the air. So when I wrote my X-Files spec which was, actually the script that got me Lois & Clark, it had been on for three seasons and it was going into it’s fourth season. There weren’t all that many X-Files specs on people’s desks. Now, of course, that has changed, everyone and their brother is writing an X-Files spec. (laugh) But at the time I was trying to decide, ‘do I want to write an X-Files spec or a Law & Order, or a Picket Fences’, I couldn’t quite decide. Then I thought, well since the X-Files is what I watch, I might as well write that. Then Chris Carter got a hold of it some how and hired me."
Ah, don’t we wish it were all that easy! And still, Tim comes across many forks in his road that most writers would die for. One such decision came when he was offered to work on a Tim Burton project at the same time he was approached with the Angel series. Touch this man peeps, he is ‘of the luck’! "Oh that was one thing I was considering," he modestly admits. "The Tim Burton thing was for a syndicated show, so that had one strike again it. It was based on the Oz books which was a plus in its favor because I thought that could be interesting. But I think Angel was really the safe choice. I know it was (originally) ordered for 13 episodes but there was no question in anybody’s mind that it would go at least a season. And one of the reasons I chose it was because Howard Gordon was trying to get me to go there. We were just finishing working together on Howard's ill fated show Strange World.
"Scully’s the skeptic, Mulder’s
the believer!" Det. Kate Lockley
|
He was deciding if he wanted to join Angel and he wanted me along for the ride, but also felt it would be a good place for me. He thought I shared David Greenwalt’s and Joss' same sensibilities and also I knew David through other people. And let’s face it, it’s Joss Whedon!" Tim explains the different aspects of making that choice. "If I went to work on the Tim Burton thing, I wouldn’t really be working with Tim Burton. He would be an executive producer in name and he would have impute, but a) he’s a director and b) I felt that I wanted to make the choice of going someplace where I could learn something. And I wanted to go work with Joss, and boy did I make the right choice!" He certainly made the right choice as far as the fans are concerned, "That’s very nice of you to say, but I’m thinking of myself!" (laugh) Actually he sort of means that . . . in a good way of course. "Working with Joss has just been great. I mean, it’s just so nice to meet somebody who is that talented, who is such an honorable man!" It’s interesting to see how much he really is praised by the industry, not that this should be a surprising bit of information, but we’ve never come across anyone that doesn’t go all out with the compliments for a man so creative and respected as Joss. "He really is," Tim concurs, "and it’s because he’s honest and he’s very, very, very quick to give credit where it’s due and a lot of these guys aren’t. They just, for whatever reason, feel like they have to take credit for everything everyone does."
|
