Marta Kauffman received her first Emmy nomination in 1993–for Writing in a Comedy Series on the strength of the “For Peter’s Sake” episode of Dream On. She shared that nomination with fellow writer David Crane. She and Crane went on to create the iconic NBC smash hit Friends, for which they earned Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy nominations in 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2002 and 2003. Friends won the Emmy in 2002.
Fast forward to today and Kauffman has co-created (with Howard J. Morris) another show, this time for Netflix: Grace and Frankie starring Jane Fonds and Lily Tomlin in the respective title roles. They portray long-time rivals–Tomlin’s Frankie is a hippie-esque painter and Fonda’s Grace an uptight perfectionist–whose lives are abruptly turned upside down when their husbands reveal they are gay. Portrayed by Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, the husbands leave Grace and Frankie to marry each other.
At press time, Grace and Frankie–produced by Skydance Productions–earned the go-ahead for a second season. The renewal was described by Kaufman as being “incredibly exiting. We left a lot of threads of storyline in the hope that we would get a second season. We now have the opportunity to pick up those threads and see where they will lead.”
From conventional network television to Internet TV network Netflix has generally been a happy transition for Kauffman. “To go straight to 13 episodes from the outset was exciting,” she related. “It’s not a case of shooting a pilot and waiting forever for someone to say yea or nay. Also, they’re so smart at Netflix. I got such good notes from them. They look at a show in a holistic way rather than ‘on page 7, we don’t like what he said.’
“Another huge advantage of being on Netflix is that we get a full thirty minutes to tell a story,” continued Kauffman. “We’re not working in five-minute blocks with commercial interruptions. There’s more time to tell a story, to develop it more and go deeper into characters.”
Kauffman noted there were some other adjustments necessitated by the Netflix business model. “By going straight to 13 episodes, which is great, you don’t shoot a pilot so you don’t get to make any mistakes. The pilot can help you fine tune and work out problems.”
Kauffman also had to get used to being sans Nielsen numbers. “The day Grace and Frankie was launched, I was waiting for the phone call to tell me what the ratings were.”
Without ratings feedback, Kauffman checked out social media to see reactions to the show. “It was incredible to see the support and comments,” she said, adding that “because people can binge watch, they have a relationship to the show early on which you wouldn’t have gotten for a whole year on regular TV. I was at an Television Academy panel last night and there was so much love and affection for the show–many people had already seen the entire season.”
Kauffman noted that getting Fonda and Tomlin together for Grace and Frankie was a bit of “a fluke.” Kauffman recalled having lunch with Marcy Ross, who heads Skydance. “She mentioned to me that Jane and Lily wanted to do TV. I thought they wanted to do it together. One thing led to another and my wrong assumption, once they heard of the idea, turned out to be right. They wanted very much to work together again [as they did in the theatrical feature 9 to 5]. I met with Jane and Lily several times. With two extraordinary talents, we needed an idea big enough to match the stature of these women. The idea came from my creative executive–Hannah K-S: ‘What if their husbands fall in love with each other?’”
Fonda has four career Emmy nominations. She won as Outstanding Lead Actress In a Limited Series or Special for her performance in ABC’s The Dollmaker in 1984. Her latest nomination came for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her portrayal of Leona Lansing in HBO’s The Newsroom. Fonda is a two-time Best Leading Actress Oscar winner for her performances in Klute in 1972 and Coming Home in 1979.
Tomlin, who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work in director Robert Altman’s Nashville, is most familiar with the Emmy proceedings. She has 21 career Emmy nominations thus far and is a six-time Primetime Emmy winner, the most recent coming in 2013 for Outstanding Voiceover Performance as the “Narrator” in An Apology to Elephants.
Neville Kidd shoots Starz’s Outlander
Last year “His Last Vow” translated into a pair of firsts for DP Neville Kidd–his first Emmy nomination and win. “His Last Vow,” an episode of the Benedict Cumberbatch-starring miniseries Sherlock, part of PBS’ Masterpiece Theater, earned Kidd the Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography for a Movie or Miniseries.
Now Kidd is in a contender for a second nomination based on his lensing of multiple episodes of the Starz drama series Outlander based on the historical time travel series of novels by Diana Gabaldon. Created by Ronald D. Moore (who also created such series as Syfy’s Battlestar Galactica) and produced by Left Bank Pictures, Outlander centers on Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser (portrayed by Caitriona Balfe), a British Army nurse in World War II who is on a second honeymoon in Scotland with husband Frank Randall (Tobias Menzies), an M16 officer embarking on a new career as an Oxford historian. She is then transported to 1743 into a cryptic world where her freedom and life are in jeopardy. In order to survive, she marries Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan), a Scots warrior, and finds herself conflicted between two worlds and two men.
Kidd said that his Emmy-winning effort on Sherlock and prior to that the multiple episodes he lensed of Doctor Who “gave me the necessary experience to be considered for a big budget epic series like Outlander. As soon as I got that call, I knew I had to do it. I have always been a big fan of Ron Moore and Battlestar Galactica in particular; the opportunity to shoot a drama of this scale and ambition in my home country with lots of talented crew I have worked with over the years was great. I could show off the beautiful landscapes of Scotland, a country I love with all of my heart; and finally, seeking a true depiction of 18th century Scotland was an exciting challenge I just couldn’t pass up.”
There were other challenges wrapped within that challenge. “For exteriors in Scotland, the weather is always a challenge,” observed Kidd. “We didn’t shirk away from the rain and wind, instead using it to highlight the harshness of 18th century life. But on the days when the natural light quality was fluctuating too much, we had to bring in the big HMIs to ensure continuity. Blending modern lighting with more ancient light sources, such as candles and open fires in order to make the viewer feel genuinely immersed in the life of an 18th century castle, was an interesting challenge. The 21st century lighting had to be imperceptible.”
From a technical standpoint, Kidd put the prime challenge in the form of a question: “What was the minimum amount of gear I could take out into difficult mountainous terrain whilst still maintaining the high production values required? As simple as that! The crew were phenomenal at keeping everything protected from the rain.”
For Outlander Kidd deployed the ARRI ALEXA Plus, with Cooke S4 lenses. “This camera has a very cinematic look with a latitude that mimics film,” he assessed.
Regarding what came before Outlander, besides the Emmy win for Sherlock, Kidd recently wrapped Childhood’s End, a three-part miniseries based on the writings of science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke. Nick Hurran directed Childhood’s End, and earlier collaborated with DP Kidd on “His Last Vow” as well as episodes of Doctor Who.
Kidd won the Best photography Factual BAFTA Award in 2009 for History of Scotland. He also shot Day of the Doctor, the BBC’s Doctor Who 50th episode event drama which made history for being simultaneously broadcast in 94 countries and in 3D cinemas worldwide. And in 2004 his work on the film Solid Air was honored with the Troia International Film Festival’s Award for Best Cinematography.
Asked to reflect on what last year’s Emmy win for Sherlock’s “His Last Vow” meant to him personally and professionally, Kidd shared, “It was a personal high and a brilliant moment at the ceremony to thank my family for all their support over the years. Professionally it was amazing to be recognized by the Academy–that’s as good as it gets. The win has definitely put me on the radar a little bit more, and I am excited to see what the next great jobs will be.”
As for what’s immediately next, Kidd is currently shooting season two of Outlander.
This is the second installment of a 14-part series that explores the field of Emmy contenders, and then nominees spanning such disciplines as directing, cinematography, producing, editing, animation and visual effects. The series will then be followed up by coverage of the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony on September 12 and the primetime Emmy Awards live telecast on September 20.
