Saturday, February 29, 2020

Weekend Post

A lot of shows use technical advisers. It’s hard enough to write a good autopsy scene without also having to know anatomy. Sure, writers spent a lot of their high school nights at home alone, but we didn’t spend the time learning forensics. While others were taking pre-med courses in college we were taking Sitcom 101 and playing poker. 

So when we’re asked to write lawyer/cop/doctor/dance shows we need a little help. On MASH we had three technical advisers. Dr. Walt Dishell who was our medical expert. We also had a trained nurse on the set to make sure the actors weren’t picking up scalpels from the wrong end. (The extras who played the patients in the operating scenes used their own organs, by the way. There were no guts-doubles.)

Additionally, we had a military adviser. When you hear Radar rattle off a list of incomprehensible army directives some are actually legit. And who needs to make up insane military procedures when all you have to do is use the real thing?

A Colonel from the Public Information Office of the army was assigned to us. When we first spoke to him he was very by-the-book, very wary of what we show business personnel were going to do with the information he was asked to provide. He also was new to the assignment, having only recently been transferred to Los Angeles. He had been overseas for two years.

We would ask him a simple question. He would call back with a long excruciatingly detailed answer that would include no less than five directives, four regulations, and seven procedures.

Now flash forward a year.

We call him for clarification on where death certificates were sent and he says, “Yeah yeah, sweetie, I’ll get to that. But first, I’ve got a great idea for a pilot. Okay, now picture this: establishing shot…” And he goes on to describe this stupefying idea. And all the while I'm thinking:

Sweetie? Establishing shot??

From then on we called him very rarely. Making stuff up was better than hearing his latest movie/pilot/mini series idea. And how do you complain to his superiors that we wanted a different adviser because this highly decorated war hero Colonel had gone too Hollywood?

So the next time you see a TV doctor or lawyer spouting authentic dialog just know there is a technical adviser somewhere, who spent years in law school or medical school, making an appointment for a Botox treatment.

19 comments :

slgc said...

My father, who is a retired radiologist, was always amused back in the '60s when he would see upside down X-Rays in doctor's offices on television.

Things have advanced a lot since then.

Anonymous said...

Great post Ken.
I recall doing some pre planning for a movie.
And they had lots of technical advisers for the script.
They can improve things.

Telly

kent said...

I haven't consulted since LA Law and my wrinkles could sure use a touch-up.

Joseph Scarbrough said...

Lol, okay, that anecdote about the Colonel "going Hollywood" was hilarious!

CJMiller said...

Sometimes it all works out for the best though--remember, George Kennedy started out as the technical adviser on The Phil Silvers Show.

Roseann said...

I was so pleased when I was working on a John Wells Production in New York City and got to meet the Emergency Doctor who was the technical advisor of ER. (We had out own advisors but this Doc was a god to me.)

Buttermilk Sky said...

I wonder how much technical advice gets ignored because it would wreck the story or otherwise get in the way. Stephen Ambrose was technical advisor on SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and was shown a rough cut and asked what he thought. "Well, for a start, Tom Hanks is too old," he said. "The average age of an infantry captain in World War II was 23." After a silence, someone said, "What else?" They wanted to be sure they were using the correct rifles, uniform badges, etc. Recasting the movie was not about to happen.

Always ask the experts first, as you clearly did on MASH.

Michael said...

I'm reminded of Alan Alda's story of how he became ill in South America and had to have surgery, and when the doctor told him what the problem was, Alda identified the procedure and the doctor wondered if he was working on a colleague! Thanks, Dr. Dishell!

tb said...

That's funny! Got all full of himself, he's "working in the biz" now, don't you know, haha

Houston has a problem said...

Friday Question

Where do you stand on the concept of holograms of dead singers in concert with live bands? There's going to be a concert tour in which a hologram of Whitney Houston will appear on stage while playback of her vocals are backed up by a live band. I think the whole thing is grotesque and tasteless, and I question the intelligence of anyone paying to watch such a travesty.

Tom Galloway said...

I wonder if some shows realize they need one. I've had a thread going on my FB feed about how Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist amounts to a handbook of how *not* to be a manager in a software development company. Also, the lead's not really coming across as a software developer period, and a lot of the "developer talk" is just wrong. As one person put it, now he knows how his lawyer friends felt about .

On the other hand, there is a place in the Ferry Building that sells Cheesequakes, so they got that right.

[Available as a consultant in these areas at reasonable rates, down to the level of pointing out that any developer who creates a software spelling system for their paralyzed with an ALS-like disease father to communicate is going to drop at least three Stephen Hawking references : -)).]

Loosehead said...

My wife, an ex-nurse, loves to watch medical shows just to pick holes - "Oh, we'd never do that", "Oh, that is so wrong" - so I try to watch anything computer related, to do the same. My favourite is Scotty in Star Trek IV, who starts off talking to the mouse of a Mac SE ("Oh, computer!"), and then starts hammering away on the keyboard of the totally graphical Mac interface.

I have no life, no friends...

Carter Burger said...

I just watched the episode "Point of View". Can you shed any light on how logisticly that show was shot.

Charles Bryan said...

Imagine being the medical advisor on House, M.D. "Okay, yes, it could be A but almost kill the patient, and then it could be B but they almost kill the patient, and then there's C, which only a genius could figure out."

I say this as someone who very much enjoyed the early seasons.

Mark said...

The other extreme would be Bill Clark, the former NYPD detective who started out as the technical adviser on NYPD Blue but who was soon bumped up to writer/producer. He ended up with 199 story credits.

Sean said...

@Loosehead. Very sorry you have no friends, but I'll remember your comment if I watch Star Trek IV again and sniker at Scotty a little in your honor. :)


Sean

MikeN said...

>Making stuff up was better than hearing his latest movie/pilot/mini series idea.

Thanks for explaining the making of Suits.

Andrew said...

I recall an interview with the cast of Law and Order, giving credit to their technical advisers (detectives, lawyers, etc.). One thing that stood out was that the dark humor and snide comments in the opening scenes (especially Lenny Briscoe's dialogue) was based on how detectives actually talked, using humor to cope with the ugliness of what they were dealing with.

Jahn Ghalt said...

The Martian "used" a technical advisor - a heavy-hitter at NASA. They even "bragged" on NPR about being faithful to tech/scientific/technological veracity - so I looked forward to a rare hard-SF film.

It was mostly kinda OK (to this "science kid") but their were some "howlers" - not the least of which was a brief cut to solar panels (!) The mass-penalty for PV-panel is large - even in 2040, since one can never get better than 100% efficiency.