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Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Smallville' Co-Showrunner Kelly Souders Tells Producers: 'Don't Give Notes When Everybody's Gone Home'
Kelly Souders, the co-showrunner of Superman drama Smallville and co-creator of The Hot Zone, has had her say on the complicated relationship between producers and creatives. In a panel hosted by Deadline in Germany at Seriencamp yesterday, Souders railed against producers whose primary goal is imposing their will on a production without considering how to connect with their creative counterpart. More from Deadline Folivari International Takes Global Rights To 'Pil's Adventures' Spin-Off Series Major TV Events Continue In Cologne Despite Huge Evacuation While German City Deals With WWII Bombs BBC Studios Producer Reveals Why 'Ghosts' Is "Indebted" To 'Friends' - Seriencamp 'As a producer, you're constantly giving notes and you need to figure out your goal. Is it being right, or is it to get a tune out of someone?,' she questioned. Her key message to producers addressing issues with creatives was to figure out how to deliver an opening line. 'There are a lot of times I get notes in meetings that say, 'Okay, there is a lot of work to be done here.' Immediately, your front cortex shuts down and you go into fight or flight mode. I'm going to walk out, and without even trying I'll forget what you said,' she added. She also criticized producers who provide notes on scenes when a production is at edit stage. 'It would have been a great note when we were shooting, but now everybody's gone home,' she added. 'They don't like to read' Souders was talking on a panel alongside Noémi Saglio, the French TV and film writer behind 2019 Netflix series The Hook Up Plan, who stunned an excited audience with her own take on producers' pitfalls. 'They don't like to read,' she said. 'That is what producers really need to work on. Guys, the creative is the basis for the whole thing: If you don't like to read, I don't know what to tell you. We have to come back to the material, and they have to know it by heart and understand every sentence.' Both agreed that producers needed to make tough financial calls, but urged this to be a collaborative process informed by the script and not a decision-making process taken alone with an 'Excel spreadsheet,' as Saglio put it. Souders said she has had few entirely positive experiences with producers. The exception to the rule was Ridley Scott's Scott Free Productions, whose staff had creatively supported her vision on The Hot Zone, a Nat Geo drama adaptation of Richard Preston's book about the ebola virus. Souders joined Smallville as a staff writer on Season 1 in 2001 before rising to become co-showrunner on the Warners-then-CW young adult drama. She remained with the show through its next nine seasons. She later went on to co-create and showrun Julianna Margulies-starrer drama The Hot Zone and was consulting producer and writer on Genius: Picasso and Genius: Einstein for the same network. She was also an executive producer on WGN's flagship show Salem, and consulted on CBS's Under the Dome and USA Network's Political Animals. 'You want desperately to find a creative producer who is going to elevate what you're doing, but instead a lot of times you are just arguing with them,' she said. Both Saglio and Souders noted they worked with the same creative team on most projects. 'Everybody on set is my family, and I never change that, but I change producers,' said Saglio. 'I haven't made two projects with the same producer. I don't fight with them, but I haven't found one who has brought enough to the table to do another one with them. I am so hands-on that it is so difficult to trust someone has the same vision.' Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, the American-Icelandic actor-producer, said that a good producer 'connects with the story, brings together the best creative people they think should make that story and then stay out of their way as much as they can, but be ready to pop in when needed.' He criticized how 'ego' can derail projects, and recalled an anecdote about Mel Brooks, who quietly organized Academy Award-nominated 1980 film The Elephant Man, directed by a young David Lynch. 'He was the producer, the one who bought the rights and the one who put it in the hands of David Lynch. But Mel Brooks' name isn't on the film, and the reason he gave was if it was, people would expect something different. It is an incredible thing to have the humility to tell yourself that, and that is the mark of a great producer.' Best of Deadline 'Stick' Soundtrack: All The Songs You'll Hear In The Apple TV+ Golf Series 'Nine Perfect Strangers' Season 2 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Come Out? 'Stick' Release Guide: When Do New Episodes Come Out?
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sherlock Holmes Animated Spin-Off ‘Baker Street Four' Starts Production As Germany's ARD Joins Major Euro Co-Production
EXCLUSIVE: Production has started on Baker Street Four, an animated series that follows a ragtag trio of street urchins – and a cat called Watson – who act as legendary detective Sherlock Holmes' eyes and ears on the ground. German public broadcaster ARD has come on board the project, joining the previously announced French pay TV giant Canal+ and teeing up big-ticket European co-production. More from Deadline Studiocanal CEO Anna Marsh Talks Growth For Pan-European Giant, Recent IPO, Africa Investment & Plans For More 'Paddington' Movies French Animated Series 'Samuel' About Growing Pains Of 10-Year-Old Boy Is Poised For Int'l Push Having Delivered Viral Hit For Arte Viral French Hit Animated Series 'Samuel' Sets Sales With Folivari International The show is based on the successful French comic book series 'Les Quatre de Baker Street', written by Jean-Blaise Djian and Olivier Legrand, and illustrated by David Etien. Folivari and Blue Spirit are making the series, bringing together two award-winning France-based animation houses. News of the series first surfaced at the Annecy animation fest in 2019. With ARD on board it is now full steam ahead on production. Skewing to a 6-to-10-year-old audience, the series is directed by Francis Canitrot. It will run to 12 parts and hit screens in 2027. Specifically, Baker Street Four follows three of Holmes' helpers and is an inside look at some of the group known in the Arthur Conan Doyle's stories as the Baker Street Irregulars. From the slums of Victorian London, the Baker Street Four of the series are Billy, who see himself as the brains of the band of urchins, Tom, an acrobat and ace pickpocket, and Charlotte, the resourceful one of the group. Their stray cat Watson completes the quartet. Folivari International – which is headed by Melissa Vega and was founded last year by her and Folivari founders Damien Brunner, Thibaut Ruby, and Didier Brunner – is across sales. Vega is at the Kidscreen confab in San Diego this week as the global rollout of the series takes shape. 'We're thrilled to kick off production on the series, thanks to ARD's greenlight,' she said. 'We want the children to discover this series as their first co-viewing experience – one that brings the whole family together through thrilling investigations filled with comedy and adventure.' Best of Deadline Everything We Know About Christopher Nolan's Next Film – 'The Odyssey': Release Date, Cast And More 2025 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Oscars, Spirits, Grammys, Tonys, Guilds & More 2024 Hollywood & Media Deaths: Photo Gallery & Obituaries
