“Everyone is a storyteller on some level, even if you’re just telling a loved one about your day, telling a joke, or giving directions to a party,” said S.W.A.T. co-creator and former showrunner Aaron Rahsaan Thomas. “The most effective way to connect with human beings is through storytelling.”
Thomas, who has worked on TV shows like Friday Night Lights, Numb3rs, CSI:NY, Southland, The Get Down, and S.W.A.T., says he has a love/hate relationship with human beings, which is clearly evident in his characters. “We’re fascinating in that we can be super generous and considerate, but at the same time, and in the same bodies, we can be narcissistic, selfish and cruel.”
As a kid, Thomas could be described as the good kid living vicariously through his bad kid friends. Essentially, he took this perspective with him to the page.
The silver screen era, which author Brett Martin described as “difficult men”, in regards to shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad, inspired essentially everything that came after them. “There were less Goodfellas being made, but now you had The Sopranos,” said the screenwriter.
“All of a sudden, we started to know who was in charge of these things we enjoyed. There’s a David Chase (The Sopranos). There’s a David Simon (The Wire). As an African American, I wanted to take that a step further. There’s an Yvette Lee Bowser (Living Single). There’s a Debbie Allen (A Different World). Who is the creative force behind the TV shows I grew up on?”
Aaron Rahsaan Thomas Photo by Cheriss May, Ndemay Media Group
With this “awareness of artistic vision for long-form storytelling,” Thomas realized telling stories for 60 hours rather than 2 hours was the better option. “There’s also the political power aspect where the writer is king. You can have a vision and execute it rather than it be thought of as an afterthought. The story is the soul of any project, so being able to nurture that soul is invigorating.”
Learning From Showrunners
“I’ve been fortunate to learn from some of the best showrunners in the business. I started my career working with Jason Katims on Friday Night Lights, and was fortunate later to work with John Wells on Southland. I also partnered with Shawn Ryan to create S.W.A.T. on CBS. If anything, what I look at is that every showrunner has different strengths.”
Metaphorically, Thomas said he looked to the late Kobe Bryant, who would attempt to “gather strengths in the off-season.” The writer continued, “He would gather skillsets that either he didn’t have, or wanted to sharpen. I look at writing the same way. With every writer that I work with, I’m keen to look at what they’re great at, and how I can add to my own portfolio.”
With Katims, this meant allowing the audience to empathize and laugh within the same hour of a TV episode. With Wells, this meant having a strong theme and understanding how themes work. With Ryan, this meant being clear about organization within storytelling, and executing based on priorities, while also thinking about breaking 24-episode seasons into smaller elements.
“With any of those showrunners, it’s about what can best compliment what you’re trying to do. For me, the desire has been to bring Tiffany [or high-quality] programming wherever I go. For major networks, we’ve seen a shift where they were the only game in town. That paradigm has expanded and we have more content on the air than ever. What that means is that the added competition has forced everyone to up their game.”
Shawn Ryan. Photo By Bill Inoshita
“For the creator, I think this offers more opportunity to bring our projects to different outlets, but also challenges us to no longer compete with just the few networks or a few television shows. If you’re going to bring a quirky family drama to the screen, what elements are you going to bring to turn it on its head? I’ve seen different types of approaches, so I think there’s a great story within any premise. What’s the most interesting, timely way to get it out there? How do you make yours stand out?”
Writing for Broadcast TV Networks
“The business model cosmetically may look different than streamers, but the goal is still the same: the networks want to appeal to as many eyeballs as possible. On the creator’s side, the hope is to get in a creative partnership where your vision can also help the business entities at hand accomplish what they’re trying to accomplish. It’s the marriage that has existed since the beginning of time between artistry and commerce.”
The balancing act between “engaging the audience” and “earning a profit from the product” is something both parties need to be mindful of. “Who is the audience? Who are they looking to appeal to? Any artist who wants to do this for a long period of time needs to understand there’s a business side that we need to be aware of. But, at the same time, it’s a dance. As an artist, you can’t let that dictate your creativity, or else it only becomes a product. I’m not a fan of that approach.”
Thomas’ series S.W.A.T comes from existing intellectual property (IP), but has a new spin on the crime genre.
“All of my ideas start from a personal place. I had an idea for many years about an African American cop who understood both sides of the Blue Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter debate. This was before they had hashtags. For me, that was a more compelling dilemma than chasing down serial killer #156. I had never seen that dilemma portrayed on film or television.”
Thomas knew the idea could have “more juice” when connected to an existing IP, so modeled the idea within the world of S.W.A.T., set in Los Angeles. “We were fortunate at that point, with my first run as a showrunner and pairing up with Shawn Ryan who created The Shield. That partnership helped us find something with a cool interesting world with the passions I had in that initial character.”
“I chose that world because the original S.W.A.T. team was initially created in Los Angeles, and there’s a whole troubled past with the origin of S.W.A.T. in the black community, I felt like if I was going to place that character in any world, the world of Los Angeles, and militarized police, that would be the most problematic place to put him.”
Rising in the Ranks
“As an individual and as a fan of television, one of the things I noticed as I was fortunate to rise up the ranks, is that I noticed there are enough persons of color in my position (as writer/producer/showrunner), but there’s still a level above my position, when you look above an employee and see a partner.”
As such, Thomas wants to help others rise to new levels in the industry. “What I discovered is that a lot of these creatives are not always acting as additives, but as engines, who create material because they’re given the power to do so.”
As a partner, he wants to help champion others who are working to rise in the industry. “It starts with having a passion and a vision,” he said about the entrepreneurial side of production. “When it comes to mentorship, it can come in a variety of different ways. Personally I think you never stop learning. You can be at the highest level and learn from anybody.”
“In my space, I can’t ever ignore or forget what I represent. I’m not just a creator, a writer or a showrunner, but I’m also a black man in this space, which is very different from the experiences of Vince Gilligan or Shawn Ryan. There are very few who have had the opportunities that I’ve had. I look at it as a responsibility to leave the space in a better place than when I started. I don’t want to leave as one of the few, but one of the many, and that I had a part opening doors for those behind me.”
Thomas looks to John Ridley as one such example. “There haven’t been many black men existing in the dramatic space on a high level, because a lot of them hit what we call the ceiling. You have showrunners, but you have to be forward thinking for partnerships to open on the next level. That’s what I’m interested in now. How do we expand partnerships of creativity to create content, and therefore cut through the noise to improve the industry?”
IP Stories for Minorities
“It’s wider than black stories, although that’s my priority because that’s my perspective. I think Hollywood has been limited because, what are stories outside of white male stories? Any stories. Whether that’s Muslim or Persian or female, we’re at the tip of the iceberg in terms of what stories we’ve been able to tell.”
The screenwriter said the key is to look at why you want to tell the story, and are you being authentic to that world? He continued, “In the past, the easy solution was the cosmetic solution, where we cast a character in a different race or different gender, but the problem is that the DNA is the same. The perspective still comes from one that may not reflect the reality of what you claim to be going after.”
“The business, like the content, requires authenticity behind the scenes, in every rank, in addition to cosmetic changes. When we’re talking about creators of content moving forward, it’s not the elimination of anything, but the expansion. Expand so you have more choices. At any given time, detective shows have fit a slender dynamic, but there’s so many different ways to tell detective stories. But that requires DNA behind the scenes, rather than changing Bosch to a black man.”
Going forward, Thomas has the goal of nurturing talent by recognizing new voices and helping others rise through the ranks. “It comes from a selfish place for me because I’m a fan of TV, but there are opportunities to see different types of shows across the board, if we’re able to introduce new blood to the bloodstream.”
For S.W.A.T., the approach was “introducing the nutritional value in a delicious meal.” For a cop show pilot, there needs to be visceral elements, which is why they brought in Justin Lin (Fast & Furious franchise) to direct. But, also, there needs to be the “attitudes” or “nutrition” for the show. “Exposition is oftentimes an opportunity to reveal attitudes on the world. How does this character, a black man, see the death of a black kid?”
“You have to be efficient with time and dialogue. You don’t have three minutes to discuss life philosophies, but you have time to show why a particular individual has this perspective, so that’s what you’re looking at. S.W.A.T. wasn’t going to be a show that offered answers, but rather posed questions for the audience to debate. Allow that conversation to manifest itself in the audience’s lives rather than telling people how to think.”
This interview has been condensed. Listen to the full audio version here.
