OfficeTally

Michael Schur is one of the veteran writers and co-producers of The Office. He’s written or co-written classic episodes from all three seasons, including The Alliance, Office Olympics, Christmas Party, Valentine’s Day, Branch Closing, Traveling Salesmen, The Return, The Negotiation, and The Job. He also played Dwight’s cousin Mose in the episode ‘Initiation.’

I recently had a series of conversations with Michael about Season 4 scripts, the writing process in general, how he really feels about his fellow writers, and other behind-the-scenes stuff. Enjoy! (I certainly did.)

Michael: Happy Birthday!

Tanster: Thank you! If this is really you, you totally made my day. If you are an imposter, shame on you, getting a girl all excited like that on her BIRTHDAY! Answer this question: which room did I meet you during my set visit?

Michael: Wow. You’re hard core. I promise it’s me. No one in the world would ever bother to steal my identity. But since you asked, it was in Video Village. And we talked for a long time. And Gene and Lee were there … and Kent came in … and it was just magical …

Tanster: Omigosh, it is you! We did meet in Video Village! I hope you guys are doing well, cranking through the first 13 scripts.

Michael: We’re doing okay writing these suckers. Won’t know for sure until we get back and can actually read them. I’m on page 24 on mine (it’s one of the hours) and most of what I’ve written needs to be thrown out. Takes a while to remember how to write these characters.

Tanster: Before we dive into Season 4 stuff, let’s start at the beginning. What did you do before you worked on “The Office”?

Michael: I wrote for “Saturday Night Live” for six years. It was a great job, and I loved living in New York, but I was dating my then-girlfriend (now wife) JJ long-distance. She was in Los Angeles writing for shows out here. As nice as it was to rack up JetBlue frequent flier miles, I decided to leave and move to California.

Tanster: How did you become involved with “The Office”? What was the process of joining the writing staff?

Michael: As luck would have it — and when I say that, I mean, “as the luckiest thing that could ever happen to a human man would have it” –- Greg was putting together a writing staff for The Office, which at the time had been picked up for a less-than-confidence-inspiring six episodes. I got an interview with him and we talked for about two hours in his office at “King of the Hill.” A few days later he offered me a job, which I nonchalantly mulled over for 1.2 seconds before accepting.

Tanster: You weren’t nervous accepting a writing job for only six episodes?

Michael: I, like everyone else, loved the British show and was nervous when I heard it was being remade. But within two minutes of talking to Greg, I knew it was in good hands. Before we even got together as a staff, he had put so much thought and energy into figuring out how to make it work. I figured that if it didn’t succeed, it wouldn’t be for lack of quality.

Tanster: How’s your summer been Office-wise? When did you start working on scripts for Season 4?

Michael: We tried something new this off-season. Usually, the writers will disappear as soon as the director yells “cut” on the final shot of the season, and spend two months or so doing all of the things we haven’t been able to do. Like, scheduling doctors’ appointments, and seeing our families during the daylight, and thinking about anything other than the characters we write for. But since the end of shooting for an episode happens about four weeks before it airs, the showrunner has to stick around at the end of a season to finish editing the last few episodes and deal with DVD preparation and stuff. So Greg figured, why not keep the staff around too, and keep working for a while.

Tanster: So what you’re saying is, Greg’s a taskmaster.

Michael: He’s ruthless.

So we took two weeks off when we wrapped to clear our heads and take deep breaths and sleep, and then went back to work. We spent the second half of April and all of May breaking stories for next year, and then took our actual vacation in June and the first week of July — but ten of us have outlines for scripts. We’re getting back together July 9, and we’ll have ten scripts to look over and begin rewriting. Four of them are hour-longs, so the work is really just beginning.

Tanster: Your schedule sounds absolutely brutal. I remember the day that we visited, Lee and Gene must have worked more than 12 hours that day. Is that a typical work day when you guys are in the thick of things?

Michael: Twelve hours is pretty standard during shooting. In the off-season, we generally work 10 to 6 or 7. The super-late nights end anywhere from 11:00 PM to 2 AM, but that’s pretty rare.

Tanster: How many of those first 10 episodes are you writing, and how are they going?

Michael: I am writing two, I guess you would say, but it’s going to air as one hour-long show (it will be two individual ones when they air in repeats). That’s part of this new challenge — the hour-longs should ideally be able to be broken up into two distinct parts, but still feel cohesive as one continuous hour. It’s like an obstacle course. That we perform on computers. And that burns zero calories.

Tanster: How many pages is a typical script?

Michael: Our half-hour scripts, when they’re in “shooting draft” form (meaning all the rewriting has been done and it’s ready to be shot, obviously) are usually 34-38 pages long. Figure a little over a minute a page, so we get editors’ assemblies that run about 40 minutes, which is why we have so many deleted scenes and extra stuff to put online and on the DVDs.

Greg’s theory about the show from day one was that we should write it, and shoot it, and edit it, like it’s actually a documentary — have a ton of material and then essentially do a kind of final re-write in the editing room.

A lot of the real work of the show is done by Dean Holland and Dave Rogers, our two editors, who sift through 40+ minutes of material and (with Greg and the writer’s help) cut it down to 21:09, which is our typical allotted time.

Tanster: 21:09. Wow. Precise down to the last second! And I bet y’all work hard at making sure every second is golden.

Michael: We try. One of the sad facts of network TV is that every year a few more seconds get robbed from the running time of shows, to make room for promos or extra ads. We often feel that the optimal running time for one of our episodes is about 24-25 minutes, but there’s just no way to leave them that long without supersizing or releasing longer cuts on iTunes or something. That’s where those producer’s cuts came from — the feeling that the best version of some of the episodes was around that length.

We’re trying to write shorter scripts this year, because it takes a crazy amount of time to shoot and edit that much material, and we want to shave some of that time off our week. When we were done shooting the finale last year, which was the first true hour-long we shot, the first cut that Dean and Dave put together was 73 minutes long, and it had to be I think 42:30 or something.

Tanster: Dean and Dave must dream about The Office in their sleep.

Michael: Dean is a well-adjusted and mature individual, so I think he is okay. Dave is a dangerous sociopath who refers to the actors as their character names and has a home-made action figure of his dog. I think he probably dreams about doing us great harm in some kind of “Saw III” kind of way.

Anyway, with the finale, we were half an hour too long, which was just crazy. It took Paul and me days and days just to get it into good enough shape to show Greg, and then it took him more days and more days to get it down to its final fighting weight. If we have to spend that much time on each of the first four hour-longs this year, we’ll just curl up into little balls in the parking lot and pray we get run over.

Tanster: Goodness — half an hour too long! I’m hoping most of the stuff you guys cut from “The Job” ended up on the DVD.

Michael: We put a lot of extra stuff on there. There was one Michael talking head that I particularly loved that we had to cut for time — it’s extremely funny and a great performance by Steve. You’ll know it when you see it — it includes another mention of Billy Joel.

Tanster: Can you talk more about the editing process?

Michael: The editors assemble a massive cut of every single scene in the show, which is inexplicably given the bizarre name: “The Editor’s Assembly.” Just one of those weird show-biz terms. Like I said, it’s usually about twice as long as it should be. The directors then get to sit down with the editors and do something called a “Director’s Cut.” (Again, don’t ask me why they called it that.) It’s really great to see what the directors cut and what they leave in … Joss Whedon’s director’s cut for “Business School” was mind-blowingly good. And then after a few days it gets turned over to the writers for good.

If there is time, we like to let the editors then go through and do a cut of their own, since they, after staring at every take of every scene, know the material better than anyone. Also, if they don’t have something to work on, they come upstairs to hang out with us, and they’re super annoying.

Once the writer is involved, we just sit down in the edit bays with Dave or Dean, depending who is editing the episode, and go through it over and over again, tightening things, cutting things, choosing different takes. It usually goes like this:

Mike: You cut that scene? I think we should leave that scene in.
Dave: (rolling eyes) Okay.
Mike: Why did you roll your eyes?
Dave: No reason. I mean, I guess you don’t want the show to be funny.
Mike: You think we should cut that scene?
Dave: Well, given the fact that it’s completely unfunny and bores me to death, yeah, I think we should cut it. But no — definitely leave it in. You’re the “writer.”

And so on.

Tanster: This sounds like a deleted scene in itself!

Michael: There is a very funny documentary waiting to be made about Dave Rogers. I promise you.

Tanster: Do you ever second-guess yourself on whether a piece of dialog sounds real or not?

Michael: Second-guessing yourself is pretty much the definition of writing. That should actually be the new credit — instead of Staff Writer, when you first start you should be called Second-Guesser. Then Co-Second Guesser, Supervising Second-Guesser …

Tanster: I would like credit for inspiring that credit, then.

Michael: You are now an honorary Second-Guesser.

Tanster: Does Greg sign off on all scripts?

Michael: Greg is the ultimate arbiter of all things, and he wields his power like a thug dictator with a score to settle. We are not allowed to look him directly in the eye, under penalty of contract termination. His black Dodge Magnum must be washed daily using the tears of a thousand children. And whoever is “in his doghouse” has to spend all day massaging the massive hump that protrudes from his back.

Nothing is ever truly official until Greg okays it. Which, in all honesty, is why the show is good. Showrunners are forced to make dozens of decisions every day, and starting in the very early days of developing this show, Greg has made 19,200 consecutive correct decisions. Which I believe is some kind of record.

Tanster: Will there will be any new “special guest” directors for Season 4? (I know you can’t tell me who they are; I was just wondering if there are any.)

Michael: I know that we’ve started pursuing some super cool people … we definitely want to continue having new directors around. The writers love it, it’s fun for the actors, and it keeps the show fresh. So, win-win-win.

Next up: Part Two — Writing the characters and working with the other writers

Related links

• Q&A with Michael Schur: Part 2
• Q&A with Michael Schur: Part 3

Posted in The Office Interviews, Michael Schur, The Office Writers