-
Cyndi Stivers: So, future of storytelling.
-
Before we do the future,
-
let's talk about what is never
going to change about storytelling.
-
Shonda Rhimes:
What's never going to change.
-
Obviously, I think good stories
are never going to change,
-
the need for people to gather together
and exchange their stories
-
and to talk about the things
that feel universal,
-
the idea that we all feel
a compelling need to watch stories,
-
to tell stories, to share stories --
-
sort of the gathering around the campfire
-
to discuss the things
that tell each one of us
-
that we are not alone in the world.
-
Those things to me
are never going to change.
-
That essence of storytelling
is never going to change.
-
CS: OK. In preparation
for this conversation,
-
I checked in with Susan Lyne,
-
who was running ABC Entertainment
-
when you were working
on "Grey's Anatomy" --
-
SR: Yes.
-
CS: And she said that there was
this indelible memory she had
-
of your casting process,
-
where without discussing it
with any of the executives,
-
you got people coming in
to read for your scripts,
-
and every one of them
was the full range of humanity,
-
you did not type anyone in any way,
-
and that it was completely surprising.
-
So she said, in addition
to retraining the studio executives,
-
you also, she feels,
-
and I think this is -- I agree,
-
retrained the expectations
of the American TV audience.
-
So what else does the audience
not yet realize that it needs?
-
SR: What else does it not yet realize?
-
Well, I mean, I don't think
we're anywhere near there yet.
-
I mean, we're still in a place
-
in which we're far, far behind what looks
like the real world in actuality.
-
I wasn't bringing in
a bunch of actors
-
who looked very different from one another
-
simply because I was
trying to make a point,
-
and I wasn't trying
to do anything special.
-
It never occurred to me
that that was new, different or weird.
-
I just brought in actors
because I thought they were interesting
-
and to me, the idea that it
was completely surprising to everybody --
-
I didn't know that for a while.
-
I just thought: these are the actors
I want to see play these parts.
-
I want to see what
they look like if they read.
-
We'll see what happens.
-
So I think the interesting thing
that happens is
-
that when you look at the world
through another lens,
-
when you're not the person
normally in charge of things,
-
it just comes out a different way.
-
CS: So you now have
this big machine that you run,
-
as a titan -- as you know,
last year when she gave her talk --
-
she's a titan.
-
So what do you think
is going to happen as we go on?
-
There's a huge amount of money
involved in producing these shows.
-
While the tools of making stories
have gone and gotten greatly democratized,
-
there's still this large distribution:
-
people who rent networks,
who rent the audience to advertisers
-
and make it all pay.
-
How do you see the business model changing
now that anyone can be a storyteller?
-
SR: I think it's changing every day.
-
I mean, the rapid, rapid change
that's happening is amazing.
-
And I feel -- the panic is palpable,
-
and I don't mean that in a bad way.
-
I think it's kind of exciting.
-
The idea that there's
sort of an equalizer happening,
-
that sort of means that anybody
can make something, is wonderful.
-
I think there's some scary in the idea
that you can't find the good work now.
-
There's so much work out there.
-
I think there's something like
417 dramas on television right now
-
at any given time in any given place,
-
but you can't find them.
-
You can't find the good ones.
-
So there's a lot of bad stuff out there
because everybody can make something.
-
It's like if everybody painted a painting.
-
You know, there's not
that many good painters.
-
But finding the good stories,
the good shows,
-
is harder and harder and harder.
-
Because if you have
one tiny show over here on AMC
-
and one tiny show over here over there,
-
finding where they are
becomes much harder.
-
So I think that ferreting out the gems
-
and finding out who made
the great webisode and who made this,
-
it's -- I mean, think
about the poor critics
-
who now are spending 24 hours a day
-
trapped in their homes
watching everything.
-
It's not an easy job right now.
-
So the distribution engines
are getting more and more vast,
-
but finding the good programming
for everybody in the audience
-
is getting harder.
-
And unlike the news,
-
where everything's getting
winnowed down to just who you are,
-
television seems to be getting --
-
and by television I mean anything
you can watch, television shows on --
-
seems to be getting
wider and wider and wider.
-
And so anybody's making stories,
-
and the geniuses are sometimes hidden.
-
But it's going to be harder to find,
-
and at some point that will collapse.
-
People keep talking about peak TV.
-
I don't know when that's going to happen.
-
I think at some point
it'll collapse a little bit
-
and we'll, sort of, come back together.
-
I don't know if it
will be network television.
-
I don't know if that model is sustainable.
-
CS: What about the model
-
that Amazon and Netflix are throwing
a lot of money around right now.
-
SR: That is true.
-
I think it's an interesting model.
-
I think there's
something exciting about it.
-
For content creators, I think
there's something exciting about it.
-
For the world, I think
there's something exciting about it.
-
The idea that there are programs now
-
that can be in multiple languages
with characters from all over the world
-
that are appealing and come out
for everybody at the same time
-
is exciting.
-
I mean, I think the international sense
that television can now take on
-
makes sense to me,
-
that programming can now take on.
-
Television so much is made for, like --
here's our American audience.
-
We make these shows,
-
and then they shove them
out into the world
-
and hope for the best,
-
as opposed to really thinking
about the fact that America is not it.
-
I mean, we love ourselves
and everything, but it's not i.
-
And we should be
taking into account the fact
-
that there are all
of these other places in the world
-
that we should be interested in
while we're telling stories.
-
It makes the world smaller.
-
I don't know.
-
I think it pushes forward the idea
that the world is a universal place,
-
and our stories become universal things.
-
We stop being other.
-
CS: You've pioneered, as far as I can see,
-
interesting ways to launch new shows, too.
-
I mean, when you
launched "Scandal" in 2012,
-
there was this amazing groundswell
of support on Twitter
-
the likes of which nobody had seen before.
-
Do you have any other
tricks up your sleeve
-
when you launch your next one?
-
What do you think
will happen in that regard?
-
SR: We do have some interesting ideas.
-
We have a show called "Still Star-Crossed"
coming out this summer.
-
We have some interesting ideas for that.
-
I'm not sure if we're going
to be able to do them in time.
-
I thought they were fun.
-
But the idea
that we would live-tweet our show
-
was really just us thinking
that would be fun.
-
We didn't realize that the critics
would start to live-tweet along with us.
-
But the fans -- getting people
to be a part of it,
-
making it more of a campfire --
-
you know, when you're all
on Twitter together
-
and you're all talking together,
-
it is more of a shared experience,
-
and finding other ways
to make that possible
-
and finding other ways
to make people feel engaged
-
is important.
-
CS: So when you have
all those different people making stories
-
and only some of them
are going to break through
-
and get that audience somehow,
-
how do you think
storytellers will get paid?
-
SR: I actually have been struggling
with this concept as well.
-
Is it going to be a subscriber model?
-
Are people going to say, like, I'm going
to watch this particular person's shows,
-
and that's how we're going to do it?
-
CS: I think we should buy
a passport to Shondaland. Right?
-
SR: I don't know about that, but yeah.
That's a lot more work for me.
-
I do think that there are
going to be different ways,
-
but I don't know necessarily.
-
I mean, I'll be honest and say
a lot of content creators
-
are not necessarily interested
in being distributors,
-
mainly because what I dream of doing
-
is creating content.
-
I really love to create content.
-
I want to get paid for it
-
and I want to get paid the money
that I deserve to get paid for it,
-
and there's a hard part in finding that.
-
But I also want it to be made possible
-
for, you know,
the people who work with me,
-
the people who work for me,
-
everybody to sort of get paid in a way,
and they're all making a living.
-
How it gets distributed
is getting harder and harder.
-
CS: How about the many new tools,
-
you know, VR, AR ...
-
I find it fascinating
that you can't really binge-watch,
-
you can't fast-forward in those things.
-
What do you see as the future
of those for storytelling?
-
SR: I spent a lot of time in the past year
-
just exploring those,
-
getting lots of demonstrations
and paying attention.
-
I find them fascinating,
-
mainly because I think that --
-
I think most people
think of them for gaming,
-
I think most people think of them
for things like action,
-
and I think that there is
a sense of intimacy
-
that is very present in those things,
-
the idea that -- picture this,
-
you can sit there
and have a conversation with Fitz,
-
or at least sit there
while Fitz talks to you,
-
President Fitzgerald Grant III,
-
while he talks to you
-
about why he's making
a choice that he makes,
-
and it's a very heartfelt moment.
-
And instead of you watching
a television screen,
-
you're sitting there next to him,
and he's having this conversation.
-
Now, you fall in love with the man
-
while he's doing it
from a television screen.
-
Imagine sitting next to him,
-
or being with a character like Huck
who's about to execute somebody.
-
And instead of having a scene
-
where, you know, he's talking
to another character very rapidly,
-
he goes into a closet and turns to you
and tells you, you know,
-
what's going to happen
and why he's afraid and nervous.
-
It's a little more like theater,
and I'm not sure it would work,
-
but I'm fascinating by the concept
of something like that
-
and what that would mean for an audience.
-
And to get to play with those ideas
would be interesting,
-
and I think, you know, for my audience,
the people who watch my shows,
-
which is, you know, women 12 to 75,
-
there's something interesting
in there for them.
-
CS: And how about
the input of the audience?
-
How interested are you in the things
-
where the audience
can actually go up to a certain point
-
and then decide, oh wait,
I'm going to choose my own adventure.
-
I'm going to run off with Fitz
or I'm going to run off with --
-
SR: Oh, the choose-
your-own-adventure stories.
-
I have a hard time with those,
-
and not necessarily because
I want to be in control of everything,
-
but because when I'm watching television
or I'm watching a movie,
-
I know for a fact
that a story is not as good
-
when I have control
over exactly what's going to happen
-
to somebody else's character.
-
You know, if I could tell you exactly
what I wanted to happen to Walter White,
-
that's great, but the story
is not the same, and it's not as powerful.
-
You know, if I'm in charge
of how "The Sopranos" ends,
-
then that's lovely and I have an ending
that's nice and satisfying,
-
but it's not the same story
and it's not the same emotional impact.
-
CS: I can't stop imagining
what that might be.
-
Sorry, you're losing me for a minute.
-
SR: But what's wonderful is
I don't get to imagine it,
-
because Vince has his own ending,
-
and it makes it really powerful
to know that somebody else has told.
-
You know, if you could
decide that, you know,
-
in "Jaws," the shark wins or something,
-
it doesn't do what it needs to do for you.
-
The story is the story that is told,
-
and you can walk away angry
and you can walk away debating
-
and you can walk away arguing,
-
but that's why it works.
-
That is why it's art.
-
Otherwise, it's just a game,
-
and games can be art,
but in a very different way.
-
CS: Gamers who actually
sell the right to sit there
-
and comment on what's happening,
-
to me that's more community
than storytelling.
-
SR: And that is its own form of campfire.
-
I don't discount that
as a form of storytelling,
-
but it is a group form, I suppose.
-
CS: All right,
what about the super-super --
-
the fact that everything's
getting shorter, shorter, shorter.
-
And, you know, Snapchat
now has something it calls shows
-
that are one minute long.
-
SR: It's interesting.
-
Part of me thinks
it sounds like commercials.
-
I mean, it does -- like, sponsored by.
-
But part of me also gets it completely.
-
There's something
really wonderful about it.
-
If you think about a world
-
in which most people
are watching television on their phones,
-
if you think about a place like India,
-
where most of the input is coming in
-
and that's where
most of the product is coming in,
-
shorter makes sense.
-
If you can charge people more
for shorter periods of content,
-
some distributor has figured out
a way to make a lot more money.
-
If you're making content,
-
it costs less money
to make it and put it out there.
-
And, by the way,
-
if you're 14 and have
a short attention span, like my daughter,
-
that's what you want to see,
that's what you want to make,
-
that's how it works.
-
And if you do it right
and it actually feels like narrative,
-
people will hang on for it
no matter what you do.
-
CS: I'm glad you raised your daughters,
-
because I am wondering how are they
going to consume entertainment,
-
and also not just entertainment,
-
but news, too.
-
When they're not -- I mean,
the algorithmic robot overlords
-
are going to feed them
what they've already done.
-
How do you think we will correct for that
and make people well-rounded citizens?
-
SR: Well, me and how I correct for it
-
is completely different
than how somebody else might do it.
-
CS: Feel free to speculate.
-
SR: I really don't know
how we're going to do it in the future.
-
I mean, my poor children have been
the subject of all of my experiments.
-
We're still doing
what I call "Amish summers"
-
where I turn off all electronics
-
and pack away
all their computers and stuff
-
and watch them scream for a while
until they settle down
-
into, like, an electronic-free summer.
-
But honestly, it's a very hard world
-
in which now, as grown-ups,
-
we're so interested
in watching our own thing,
-
and we don't even know
that we're being fed, sometimes,
-
just our own opinions.
-
You know, the way it's working now,
-
you're watching a feed,
-
and the feeds are being corrected
-
so that you're only getting
your own opinions
-
and you're feeling
more and more right about yourself.
-
So how do you really start to discern?
-
It's getting a little bit disturbing.
-
So maybe it'll overcorrect,
maybe it'll all explode,
-
or maybe we'll all just become --
-
I hate to be negative about it,
-
but maybe we'll all
just become more idiotic.
-
(Cyndi laughs)
-
CS: Yeah, can you picture
any corrective that you could do
-
with scripted, fictional work?
-
SR: I think a lot about the fact
that television has the power
-
to educate people in a powerful way,
-
and when you're watching television --
-
for instance, they do studies
about medical shows.
-
I think it's 87 percent,
87 percent of people
-
get most of their knowledge
about medicine and medical facts
-
from medical shows,
-
much more so than
they do from their doctors,
-
than from articles.
-
So we work really hard to be accurate,
and every time we make a mistake,
-
I feel really guilty,
like we're going to do something bad,
-
but we also give a lot
of good medical information.
-
There are so many other ways
to give information on those shows.
-
People are being entertained
-
and maybe they don't want
to read the news,
-
but there are a lot of ways to give
fair information out on those shows,
-
not in some creepy, like,
we're going to control people's minds way,
-
but in a way that's sort of
very interesting and intelligent
-
and not about pushing
one side's version or the other,
-
like, giving out the truth.
-
It would be strange, though,
-
if television drama
was how we were giving the news.
-
CS: It would be strange,
-
but I gather a lot of what
you've written as fiction
-
has become prediction this season?
-
SR: You know, "Scandal" has been
very disturbing for that reason.
-
We have this show
that's about politics gone mad,
-
and basically the way
we've always told the show --
-
you know, everybody
pays attention to the papers.
-
We read everything.
We talk about everything.
-
We have lots of friends in Washington.
-
And we'd always sort of
done our show as a speculation.
-
We'd sit in the room and think,
-
what would happen
if the wheels came off the bus
-
and everything went crazy?
-
And that was always great,
-
except now it felt like
the wheels were coming off the bus
-
and things were actually going crazy,
-
so the things that we were speculating
were really coming true.
-
I mean, our season this year
-
was going to end with the Russians
controlling the American election,
-
and we'd written it, we'd planned for it,
-
it was all there,
-
and then the Russians were suspected
of being involved in the American election
-
and we suddenly had to change
what we were going to do for our season.
-
I walked in and I was like,
-
"That scene where our mystery woman
starts speaking Russian?
-
We have to fix that
and figure out what we're going to do."
-
That just comes from extrapolating
-
out from what we thought
was going to happen,
-
or what we thought was crazy.
-
CS: That's great.
-
So where else in US or elsewhere
in the world do you look?
-
Who is doing interesting
storytelling right now?
-
SR: I don't know, there's a lot
of interesting stuff out there.
-
Obviously British television
is always amazing
-
and always does interesting things.
-
I don't get to watch a lot of TV,
-
mainly because I'm busy working.
-
And I pretty much try not to watch
very much television at all,
-
even American television,
until I'm done with a season,
-
because things start
to creep into my head otherwise.
-
I start to wonder, like,
-
why can't our characters wear crowns
and talk about being on a throne?
-
It gets crazy.
-
So I try not to watch much
until the seasons are over.
-
But I do think that there's a lot of
interesting European television out there.
-
I was at the International Emmys
-
and looking around and seeing
the stuff that they were showing,
-
and I was kind of fascinated.
-
There's some stuff
I want to watch and check out.
-
CS: Can you imagine --
-
I know that you don't spend a lot of time
thinking about tech stuff,
-
but you know how a few years ago
we had someone here at TED
-
talking about seeing,
-
wearing Google Glass and seeing
your TV shows essentially in your eye?
-
Do you ever fantasize when, you know --
-
the little girl
who sat on the pantry floor
-
in your parents' house,
-
did you ever imagine any other medium?
-
Or would you now?
-
SR: Any other medium.
-
For storytelling, other than books?
-
I mean, I grew up wanting
to be Toni Morrison, so no.
-
I mean, I didn't even imagine television.
-
So the idea that there could be
some bigger world,
-
some more magical way of making things ---
-
I'm always excited
when new technology comes out
-
and I'm always the first one
to want to try it.
-
The possibilities feel endless
and exciting right now,
-
which is what excites me.
-
We're in this sort of Wild West period,
to me, it feels like,
-
because nobody knows
what we're going to settle on.
-
You can put stories anywhere right now
-
and that's cool to me,
-
and it feels like once we figure out
how to get the technology
-
and the creativity
of storytelling to meet,
-
the possibilities are endless.
-
CS: And also the technology has enabled
the thing I briefly flew by earlier,
-
binge-viewing,
which is a recent phenomenon,
-
since you've been doing shows, right?
-
And how do you think does that change
the storytelling process at all?
-
You always had a bible
for the whole season beforehand, right?
-
SR: No, I just always knew
where we were going to end.
-
So for me,
-
the only way I can really comment on that
-
is that I have a show
that's been going on for 14 seasons
-
and so there are the people
who have been watching it for 14 seasons,
-
and then there are the 12-year-old girls
I'd encounter in the grocery store
-
who had watched
297 episodes in three weeks.
-
Seriously, and that's a very different
experience for them,
-
because they've been inside of something
-
really intensely for
a very short period of time
-
in a very intense way,
-
and to them the story
has a completely different arc
-
and a completely different meaning
-
because it never had any breaks.
-
CS: It's like visiting a country
and then leaving it. It's a strange --
-
SR: It's like reading an amazing novel
and then putting it down.
-
I think that is the beauty
of the experience.
-
You don't necessarily have to watch
something for 14 seasons.
-
It's not necessarily
the way everything's supposed to be.
-
CS: Is there any topic
that you don't think we should touch?
-
SR: I don't think
I think of story that way.
-
I think of story in terms of character
and what characters would do
-
and what characters need to do
in order to make them move forward,
-
so I'm never really thinking of story
in terms of just plot,
-
and when writers come
into my writer's room and pitch me plot,
-
I say, "You're not speaking English."
-
Like, that's the thing I say.
-
We're not speaking English.
I need to hear what's real.
-
And so I don't think of it that way.
-
I don't know if there's a way
to think there's something I wouldn't do
-
because that feels like I'm plucking
pieces of plot off a wall or something.
-
CS: That's great. To what extent
do you think you will use --
-
You know, you recently went
on the board of Planned Parenthood
-
and got involved
in the Hillary Clinton campaign.
-
To what extent do you think
you will use your storytelling
-
in the real world
-
to effect change?
-
SR: Well, you know, there's --
-
That's an intense subject to me,
-
because I feel like the lack of narrative
-
that a lot of people have is difficult.
-
You know, like,
there's a lot of organizations
-
that don't have a positive narrative
that they've created for themselves
-
that would help them.
-
There's a lot of campaigns
-
that could be helped
with a better narrative.
-
The Democrats could do a lot
-
with a very strong
narrative for themselves.
-
There's a lot of different things
that could happen
-
in terms of using storytelling voice,
-
and I don't mean that in a fiction way,
-
I mean that in a same way
that any speechwriter would mean it.
-
And I see that,
-
but I don't necessarily know
that that's, like, my job to do that.
-
CS: All right.
-
Please help me thank Shonda.
SR: Thank you.
-
(Applause)