Writers are given power in American showbiz: ‘Narcos’ co-creator

By Arundhuti Banerjee

Mumbai, Dec 9 (IANS) Writers must be given more creative power freedom to create engaging shows for new-age entertainment platforms, says Chris Brancato, the co-creator of hit Netflix crime drama series "Narcos".

Brancato is here to conduct a special masterclass on creating, writing and directing original series, on an invitation by producer Siddharth Roy Kapur's Roy Kapur Films (RKF). The banner is in a tie-up with Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd to create ground-breaking content for the Jio platform.

He started conducting the week-long masterclass from Monday, focussing on talking about creative development for high-quality series and sharing the best practices in implementing the showrunner and writer-empowered model.

Asked how he defines the role of a showrunner, Brancato told IANS here: "A showrunner is a person who takes the final creative decision of a show, a person who works closely with the writer and develops the show along, at times directing or producing it.

"But mainly, it is about the huge collaboration with everyone who is creating the show, whether it is the writer, art director and other technicians -- showrunners take the final decision."

"In America, we have given writers a lot of power to create the story and that is making a huge difference in television and web-series. It is making a new benchmark and I think with the potential of writers I have met so far in my workshop here in India, such a process will help them too," he added.

Brancato is impressed by some of the talent he met here.

"I was quite surprised to see them and their sophistication level in terms of idea and approach to storytelling. In other terms, when I meet writers in different countries, some of them have so little experience. Here, these writers and other professional are quite well-versed with the execution and production.

"They are talking in very script writing language like, 'We can do it this way instead of that... Let's try it like this'. All of them are open to try out a new idea and open to collaboration. That is very important for a change," said the showrunner who had also worked on the 10th season of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent".

While telling a story in a correct manner creates a huge difference in creating an impact on the audience, casting a popular face always amplifies any experimental form of entertainment.

How, in his view, does involvement of star helps in business in the western world, considering how Indian showbiz is quite star power driven, Brancato said: "Well, why only in India, the value of star power is everywhere in the world. Financers feel safe to sign a popular face that already has a steady fan following and who can pull in the audience.

"But casting and script go hand-in-hand. I always say that a bad casting cannot be saved by a good script and the other way round. So, it works perfectly when both the elements fall rightly -- casting and script."

(Arundhuti Banerjee can be contacted at arundhuti.b@ians.in)