CS Weekly Archive > The Big Picture > 03/16/07

A Day at The Office:
Paley Fest '07 Presents The Office

By ari eisner

The producers and cast of the Emmy-winning American version of The Office spend a night at the Director's Guild in Hollywood to talk about a show that has managed to defy the odds and unwritten rules about remaking classics.

A series that operates as a mockumentary about Dunder Mifflin, a fictional paper supply company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, The Office expertly weaves office politics, stifled romance, and several levels of tedium into a show that treads the fine line between hilarity and sadness. Led by boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell), the ensemble of employees is forever plagued with insanity-inducing workplace minutia in a television series that opts for brutally honest realism over average sitcom fare.

Following a screening of the recent "Cocktail Party" episode and a portion of an unfinished, still-to-air installment, nearly the entire cast joined Executive Producer/Showrunner Greg Daniels and a number of other writers and producers two Friday nights ago. When asked how an attempt to remake a show as beloved as the British Office was received, Daniels touched on the tricky waters they had to navigate. The studios, networks and fans were skeptical, and "even (British Office creators) Ricky (Gervais) and Stephen (Merchant) had concerns." But since seeing the direction Daniels and his staff have taken the show, the original creators have become such fans of the American series, they've even written an episode.

The writing process was talked about briefly, with Daniels explaining that "Story breaking is where we spend the most time in the room." Jokes are not often refined over and over (as is typical on most sitcoms). The writers start out, eight to ten weeks before shooting, by trying to map out the season, with mixed results. "We usually get about halfway through before we start actual production," confesses Daniels. From there, it's a mad scramble to finish the story and character arcs as the material is shot and more episodes need to be written. When they really feel strapped for ideas, the writers refer to a peculiar aid for inspiration—a deck of cards with Scranton sites and attractions depicted on them.

Although its actors all have improv backgrounds and the shaky, handheld documentary style camera gives the show an energy of immediacy, the series itself is not improvised. Stories, dialogue and gags are all written. The single exception to this rule is the "Talking Heads" sections. In these confessionals (as they are also called), the actors offer individual insights to the camera, as if speaking to an interviewer. Producer Michael Schur clarifies that "we script those and then let the actors run free with their own improvisations." As always, it's the funniest material—scripted or not—that makes it into the final cut. "Our long-range plan is to have them do it all themselves," Daniels jokes.

Executive Producer Ben Silverman believes much of the show's success is due to the fact that it's a comedy that deals with weighty issues such as race, class and sexual orientation. The show manages to avoid offending an audience—or taking itself too seriously—because it filters all this hot-button material through the socially inept Michael Scott. "He's a man who completely lacks self-awareness," Carell says of his character. The actor went on to define his character through the words of Gervais, who once told him, "If you don't know a Michael Scott, then you are Michael Scott."

Giving characters these single-line personality bases has helped both writers and actors in finding voices for the show. Rainn Wilson, who plays office dweeb Dwight, says that Daniels' description of the character has given him the key to playing the role. "Dwight has an adolescent love of hierarchies," Daniels told Wilson one day. "That's always the place I go back to," Wilson says when he's trying to find a motivation for the part. "Dwight would've made an excellent Nazi."

The writers have also devised a unique way of sidestepping creative notes. When asked if the man-on-man kiss in the season-three opener "Gay Witch Hunt" gave the network pause, Daniels calmly replied, "That wasn't in the script." This anecdote was punctuated by a wildly received reenactment of the kiss by actors Steve Carell and Oscar Nunez.

The funniest show on television did the near impossible by not only doing justice to the show that inspired it, but even managing, on some level, to surpass it. By being both critically acclaimed and popularly embraced, Greg Daniels' American version of The Office has entered a new echelon and become a classic in its own right.

Ari Eisner is an award-winning writer/director who has written for the television show Still Standing and the print magazine Creative Screenwriting . He is co-creator of the trailer parodies Must Love Jaws and 10 Things I Hate About Commandments , the latter of which was featured on CNN (mature language in both).

Photos courtesy Kevin Parry/MTR

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